Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Knuckleduster-Andrew Post

Knuckleduster


Andrew Post

Medallion, Feb 1 2013, $14.95

ISBN: 9781605424934



Minneapolis war veteran Brody “Knuckleduster” Calhoun met battered Marcy a cancer victim at a community center where both slept on cots. Her boyfriend Jonah beat her up so Knuckleduster enters a bar to kick his butt. After the vigilante for hire takes care of business with his knuckleduster brass knuckles, Detective Nathan Pierce arrives to take him to the station for busting up a man’s face for the eighteenth time; both know the violence against women has been halved since he began to mete out an eye for an eye justice. Knuckleduster also needs to recharge the battery in his carotene contact lenses that enable him to see after the Molotov cocktail attack blinded him in Cairo.



Thorp Ashbury, who served with Calhoun in Egypt as peacekeepers a decade ago, invites Knuckleduster to his Illinois farm. When he arrives, Thorp tells him his kid sister Nectar enlisted over his objection. She went to Fort Reagan in Chicago for pre Basic class work training, but when Knuckleduster goes to talk to her he finds she has vanished. As the two vets search for the missing sibling, they begin to uncover a lethal mind-bending corporate conspiracy that leaves Knuckleduster wondering if he has become as crazy as his friend is.



This entertaining futuristic noir sets the tone with little interwoven activities like the electronic monetary card to exchange credits. The vigilante protagonist is a violent Daredevil butt-kicker who defends the downtrodden and paying customers (someone has to fund his expensive contacts). The exhilarating investigation grips readers with a pulp fiction excitement as Knuckleduster battles some nasty adversaries while thinking his paranoid friend is insane as there is no corporate conspiracy to wire wounded warriors.



Harriet Klausner

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