Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Dez Limerick is in Paris with his ally Rafik when he’s aware of something he thinks is strange.  He sees two individuals dressed as painters, but, as he tells his friend, “Both had clean shoes.”  This sets off alarms for the men and puts Dez on  high alert.  Two days later the two “painters” set their plan to kill Dez and Rafik, but Dez has a plan of his own.  After one of the assassins fires a shot at him, Dez runs into the scaffolding holding him, causing the temporary structure to fall and kill the shooter.  He lets the other shooter live, saying to Rafik that she’s no threat to them.

Two weeks later FBI Special Agent Tom Fairweather brings Dez to meet Trisha Jean Jackson, assistant secretary of state.  Authorities have discovered that there is a secret site in Eastern Canada that has gone into lockdown, and there is no way to reach the scientists there.  It’s believed that in this underground bunker there is a huge deposit of cerite, a mineral that is needed in computers, smart phones, televisions, and similar electronic devices.  Apparently there are several interested parties in obtaining this materials–the United States, Russia, China, and a huge private company.  Who is behind the lockdown?

Dez is hired due to his experience and knowledge as a “gatekeeper,” someone who can open any door, keep it open as long as necessary to do the job, and then close it.  Dez is interested in the problem, especially when Fairweather tells him that Petra Alexandris, his former lover, is one of the people who is now behind the locked doors of the underground site.

Two major blizzards are headed to Newfoundland, and Dez and the others in the group have to land in the brief period between storms.  When they arrive at the hotel where they’re staying, they are met by three others who have been sent to investigate the lockdown–Dyson Patterson, a physician; Frank Watts, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; and Elisabet LeCroix, a member of a Canadian research council.

Except that Elisabet is actually Ash, the assassin who was posing as a painter in Paris when Dez rammed into the scaffolding holding her and her partner.  Dez doesn’t recognize Ash, as she is known professionally, but she recognizes him.  When he doesn’t identify her because she has dyed her hair and was covered in white dust from the building she and her partner were allegedly painting, she is relieved.  She thinks that “there was no reason to kill this man.  Yet.”

As Dez has proven in each of the three previous novels in this series, he is a man of many talents.  He has an almost uncanny ability to get out of dangerous situations, not necessarily using force but instead using his quick intelligence and problem-solving skills.  As I wrote in my review of Deadlock, the reader will eagerly await each dangerous situation that Dez finds himself in simply to see how he manages to get out of it, not necessarily by brute force but rather by using his many talents and brain power.

James Byrne is the pseudonym of a man who has worked as a journalist and in politics for more than two decades.  You can read about him at various sites on the web.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.