Troubleshooter [Hardcover]

After the great work he did breaking up the mind controlling cult in THE PROGRAM, deputy U. S. Marshall Tim Rackley is once again back on the job. This time around he's assigned as head of the task force formed to track down Den Laurey, leader of the violent biker gang the Laughing Sinners, who escapes custody while being transported to San Bernardino County Jail, leaving two U. S. Marshals dead. Laurey is known for his knife skills and was convicted of torture killing of three rival gang members in retaliation for the shooting of a Sinner. He's armed and dangerous, but not alone. With him is Lance Kaner, the gang's enforcer, and together the two are a lethal combination. With Bear and Guerrera again at his side, Rackley works day and night trying to find leads. At one point it seems as if he's got a good chance of apprehending them, but a situation arises that leaves him no choice but let them go, which results in the shooting of a sheriff's deputy not far from the scene. The wounded deputy turns out to be his wife Drey, who also happens to be eight months pregnant, which results in feelings of guilt and frustration. While still trying to deal with the loss of his daughter Ginny, who was murdered years ago, he must put his personal feelings aside and put an end to the violence, especially after the gang goes on a violent rampage in preparation for a drug deal of a new string of heroin which leads the marshals from Mexico to Afghanistan.

TROUBLESHOOTER is a great addition to the Rackley series! It's filled with so much action and suspense you just can't turn the pages fast enough. Gregg Hurwitz is one of my favorite authors, and in my opinion one of today's greatest suspense writers. He's got a style all his own and has never disappointed me yet, so if you haven't already discovered this great author I recommend you do so today!

If the year 2005 becomes known as "The Year of Hurwitz," TROUBLESHOOTER will be the reason why. Greg Hurwitz has written a number of fine books with nary a miss since THE TOWER, his debut novel. He began a new upward trajectory, however, with THE KILL CLAUSE, the first of his novels to feature U.S. Marshal Tim Rackley, and 2004's THE PROGRAM continued this trend. But neither will prepare you for the masterpiece that is TROUBLESHOOTER.

Any thriller, at its most basic level, needs a good, believable bogeyman that will scare the heck out of the reader. TROUBLESHOOTER has a whole group of them --- a biker gang known as the Laughing Sinners. The Sinners seem to run the streets of southern California with impunity, due to a combination of street smarts, mind-numbing violence, and the legal machinations of a cunning attorney. The book begins with the guarded transport of Den Laurey and Kaner, two members of the Sinners' nomad chapter --- so called because they have no fixed territory or home --- following their arrest for murder. Their brutal and daring escape leads to the formation of a task force charged with recapturing them, with whatever force it takes, and bringing the Sinners down.

Rackley, who is heading up the task force, almost recaptures Laurey but is outmanned and outgunned --- a situation that results in tragic personal consequences for Rackley mere minutes later when his pregnant wife Dray, herself a sheriff's deputy, is attacked and left for dead in the bikers' wake. Rackley must detach his personal grief and desire for revenge from his duties as task force director, even as these elements merge and intersect as the U.S. Marshal's Office and the Sinners play a continuous game of cat-and-mouse for the highest possible stakes. As the task force methodically pursues the gang, it learns that the activities of the Sinners have consequences that will affect not only southern California but also national security.

As always, Hurwitz's research is first-rate; combined with his considerable narrative talents, TROUBLESHOOTER gives the reader an over-the-shoulder view of a counterculture within a counterculture. The Sinners, self-styled "one-percenters" --- their name based upon the truism that 99 percent of bikers are law-abiding citizens --- are not merely societal nonconformists following a creed of "live and let live," but rather are outlaws at war with society, feeding off of it even as they provide vices such as sex and drugs so desired by some. The relationship, subtly but graphically demonstrated here, is more parasitic than symbiotic.

Hurwitz wisely refuses to blur the lines here, choosing instead to paint a clear picture of law enforcement and evil at their respective best and worst while providing a breakneck narrative that races to a conclusion --- two of them, actually --- that will satisfy everyone, on all counts. Ultimately, TROUBLESHOOTER is an undeniable winner.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

At a little over 300 pages, this book was a fast read. There are a few things that make you have to stretch your imagination. First, Rackley's team is too good. It becomes invincible with the help from Pete Krindon.

Dray kind of grates on your nerves.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 12 reviews  4.5 out of 5 stars