Friday, October 24, 2014

Blond Cargo-John Lansing

Blond Cargo
John Lansing
Gallery Books/Karen Hunter Publishing eBook, Oct 20 2014, $5.99
ISBN: 9781476795515

Retired NYPD narcotics chief, Jack Bertolino, left the city for Los Angeles where he gardened, drank expensive wine and drove a Mustang.  However, when Jack worked a homicide of an informant he knew back home, his efforts led to a Columbia Cartel retaliating against his Stanford University baseball playing son Chris.  Mafia chieftain Vincent Cardona provided Jack with key info and protection for his hospitalized (and still recovering) offspring

Expecting Vincent to call in the debt in the future, Jack is surprised how soon the mobster does.  Fearing his daughter, if not dead, may be in trouble from a killer who murdered two look-alikes, Vincent explains Angelica recently vanished apparently from the Club Martinique.  He wants the former cop turned P.I. with a bad back to find his missing daughter.  Jack follows clues that lead him to an affluent Iraqi with deep connections in Southern California selling females at auction to wealthy patrons.

The second Bertolino investigation (see The Devil's Necktie) is an adrenaline pumping over the top of the Hollywood sign thriller that will remind readers of Liam Neeson’s Taken except for brief interludes when the hero tries to get still hurting Chris to forgive him and scenes with his GF.  Incredibly action-packed but with a stereotypical support cast (especially the villain); readers will root for Jack to pay off his debt his way.


Harriet Klausner

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