Review Summaries

• Readers respond to its hard-boiled texture and to the way the case widens into political darkness. The wounded persistence of the protagonist is often treated as one of the book's strengths.

Reviews

• Trigger City by Sean chercover

  I had read a couple of Sean's books and thought I'd give this one a try. I was not disappointed. The storyline grips the reader and at times has you hanging on your seat waiting to see what will happen next. Another book that I have totally enjoyed reading.

• Sean Chercover Continues To Deliver!!

  I stumbled across Chercover's "Big City, Bad Blood" and was so impressed, I subsequently bought and devoured "Trigger City". Chercover is the real deal, an author who has made it to the top of my must read list in only two novels. He masterfully builds his characters and makes you care about them. He is adept at painting word pictures of Chicago so vivid that you think you are there at times. His plotting is tight, concise, and engrossing. Checover creates a Chicago noir with dialogue both spot on and believable. Ray Dudgeon is still recovering from the physical and emotional injuries he suffered in "Big City, Bad Blood" when he reluctantly accepts a case from Isaac Richmond, a retired Army colonel, who questions the official version of his daughter Joan's death, an apparent murder by a crazed fellow worker, Steven Zhang, who later commits suicide. Richmond was not close to his daughter as she grew up and now seems to want to know more about the details of her murder. Dudgeon begins nosing around and soon finds himself and his friends and family threatened by a shadowy organization. There is a lot of cloak and dagger stuff here with government cover ups, unscrupulous defense contractors, and shadowy agents working outside the government yet protected by its umbrella. Even Ray's friends, FBI special Agent Holborn, and Lt. Mike Angelo of the CPD, are hampered in efforts to work with Ray. Terry Green, his reporter friend and muse, is back to help Ray think through issues and to provide the psychological support he needs to get through his self doubts. Adding to the drama is the fact that Ray is still hopelessly in love with Jill Browning, his former love who is trying to move on in her life without Ray because of her dislike for his risky work. The interactions between these two star-crossed lovers are fascinatingly real and gripping. This novel will not disappoint as it is well written, fast paced, and filled with intriguing characters. There is an abundance of violence, deceit, lies, double crosses, and heart break. The reader is led into questions of national security versus individual rights, evil posing as good, goodness corrupted by evil, and the role of the individual in a nation influenced by the military/industrial complex. Few who Ray meets in this story are completely who or what they seem to be; indeed, the suspense builds as the reader flows with the relentless pacing of this novel and begins to uncover the truth of who everyone is and what their individual motives are. I highly recommend this novel as well as the work of Sean Chercover.

• My Humble Opinion of "Trigger City"

  Ok - This is a difficult book for me to rate or review. Before I say anything else I must say that I really liked reading this book and found it impossible to put down at bedtime 'till I finished it! I pretty much liked the writing, style, the characterization, the plot and how the mystery unfolds with a couple of question marks that lead me to give this book 3 stars and not 4. Although I always have, and still do, maintain that one should read a mystery series in published order having read "Big City Bad Blood" first created some of the annoying, but not fatal, things that lead to deducting a star! I think one needed to read the first book to understand Ray's problems but all his physical and emotional baggage was dragged on and on, ad nauseum, until at times it got boring and overwhelmed the story. If you had read the first book you didn't need it and if you hadn't, once would have been enough! Then I just did not like the way this thing ended! I don't care what Government Alphabetical agency was involved I did not like them just hushing everything up and walking away. I'd have loved Ray to say "Go To Hell" and publish the whole damn mess, bring down the President and every other Government body involved and have a huge blow up like has never been seen before. Wouldn't that make a great movie?? Just my personal, cynical opinion! I'll of Sean Chercover's books anyway

• Four Stars

  It is a very good book very interesting to me.

• A good Sunday afternoon read

  First Sentence: Facts are not truth. PI Ray Dudgeon took a serious physical and emotional hit during his last case. When the ex-military, grieving father of a murdered woman wants to hire Ray to confirm the police's determination of the case, it seems an easy 50 grand. Ray is nothing if not thorough and finds both the victim and her killer had worked together in accounting at a company which provides paramilitary troops to the government. The deeper Ray gets into the case, the more people, including the police, the FBI, the company involved and members of an unknown agency, try to dissuade him from pursuing it . There is much to like about Sean Chercover's writing. I enjoy his style and, particularly, descriptive phrasing; i.e., "I dug into it like the next day was lent."--and the strong sense of place his brings to his story. The book has a very effective opening and kept my interest all the way through. Ray is an appealing protagonist; determined and moral, not without his own issues and a bit idealistic, which is rather refreshing. The supporting characters are there but not very memorable. Chercover seems to like plots which start out deceptively simple but quickly shift to the really bad, bad guys and a much bigger enemy that originally thought. It makes the point of the vulnerability of the individual against the organization, whether it be illegal or legally sanctioned. The story is fast paced and does have terrific dialogue. It wasn't a "wow" book for me, but it was a cracking good Sunday afternoon read.

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