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.
