TARGET LANCER
By Max Allan Collins
Forge Books
305 pages
Available Nov.2012
John F. Kennedy was the first American Catholic to become
president back in 1960. That was a big
deal for this reviewer who was Catholic, 13 years old and entering his freshmen
year at St. Thomas Aquinas High School, a parochial school in Southern New
Hampshire. Three years later, while
sitting in a study hall as a junior, we were interrupted by the announcement
over the public address speakers that President Kennedy had been shot while
riding in a motorcade through the streets of Dallas, Texas.
As much as that news was a tragedy for the entire country,
those of us too young to realize the consequences of such a murder watched the
transition of power take affect just as we’d been taught in our civic classes
and found comfort in that process. Five
years later, while serving in army in Vietnam, the news of Bobby
Kennedy’s assignation during his own campaign for the presidency had a much
deeper impact. Here we were in a strange, foreign country supposedly fighting
for freedom and democracy while back home the nation’s future was being decided
by an insane gunman’s bullet. The world
seemed to have gone completely mad.
The Twentieth Century certainly had its defining moments, many
of them acts of violence forever imprinted on our national consciousness. Naturally the public wanted answers and
within week’s of the President’s death a government investigation was launched
and came to be known as the Warren Commission.
At its conclusion, it declared that Kennedy had been slain by one lone,
crazed gunman named Lee Harvey Oswald.
As all of you are well aware, Oswald was gunned down in front of the Dallas jail within days
of his capture and died before ever going to trial. His killer was the owner of a local strip
joint with mob connections named Jack Ruby.
Ruby swore he acted on his own until his death in prison of
cancer. Yet to many people his silencing
of Oswald seemed to be a cleverly staged killing orchestrated by Machiavellian
forces that wanted the truth kept hidden; the same cabal that was actually
responsible for Kennedy’s death. As
years passed, many investigators, both private and public, began to uncover
mountains of damning evidence that in the end turned the Warren Commission’s
finding upside down and definitively proved them to be one massive cover up
foisted on the American people.
When we learned that Max Allan Collins’ newest Nathan Heller
historical thriller would involve the Kennedy assassination we were naturally
intrigued. What new light could the
talented Collins and his phenomenal research partner, George Hagenauer, shed on
one of the most overexposed criminal events in all of history? Having just finished reading “Target Lancer,”
the answer to that question provides the basis for one of the most gripping
mystery plots ever put to paper. As
usual, Collins sets a historically accurate background then superimposes his
own thoughts and beliefs about its scenario via his fictional hero, Nate
Heller; the owner of the A-1 Detective Agency of Chicago. At the book’s opening, Heller is recruited by
the Chicago branch of the Secret Service to help
with security measures for the president’s planned visit to the Windy City. Apparently during the Fall of 1963, Kennedy’s
people had begun to organize his re-election campaign via several big city
visits to include Tampa, Chicago
and then Dallas. With only one year remaining in his term, it
was time to start politicking once more.
Within days of agreeing to help the local authorities,
Heller is sent to interview a Chicago
detective who he has come in contact with an irrational ex-marine who might
pose a genuine threat. From this slim
lead, Heller and his partner, a black Secret Service agent named Eben Boldt,
learn of a professional hit squad made of two Americans and two Cuban refugees
apparently surveying the proposed route of the president’s motorcade through
the city. As each new element is
uncovered, Heller starts mentally assembling a jigsaw puzzle that perfectly defines
a clandestine military operation. By the
books end, he has unraveled a murderous conspiracy made up of gangland figures
and corrupted government agents to eliminate Lance; the Secret Service code
name for President Kennedy.
What “Target Lancer” exposes is that the there were three
identical hit squads, and their duped patsies, established in all three cities
prior to that fateful November in 1963.
As with all Heller books, the historical afterward Collins provides is
just as informative as his fiction is captivating. Upon finishing the book, this reviewer
couldn’t help but wonder, now that most of the real principles have all died
and gone to their eternal court of judgment, what it is we, as a nation can learn
from such history? Evil men do exist and
that we must be ever vigilant to assure they do not usurp the rights of the
many by their insidious acts of violence.
For both students of history and lovers of suspense
mysteries, “Target Lancer” is a masterful work not to be missed. Collins just
keeps getting better and better.
