SUPEREME JUSTICE

SUPREME JUSTICE

By Max Allan Collins

Thomas & Mercer

284 pages

Available June 2014

After taking a bullet for the President he personally despised, Secret Service Agent Joseph Reeder collected his partial pension and called it quits.  Now he operates his own security business in the nation’s capital and is fairly content with his life.  All that changes when a Supreme Court Justice is shot dead during the audacious daylight robbery of a swank D.C. restaurant.  Reeder is recruited by Gabe Sloan, an old F.B.I. friend, to help with the investigation.  Nicknamed “Peep” by his former associates, Reeder is a student of kinesics; the art of reading body language and his observation skills are legendary.

Asked to examine video footage of the robbery and shooting, Reeder is able to see through the subterfuge of the incident and discovers that the Justice’s murder was in fact a deliberate assassination.  Sloan has him report his findings to his superiors at the Bureau and an inter-agency task force is put together to find the killers.  Twenty four hours later a second Justice is gunned down outside his home and what had begun as an isolated act of violence is quickly turned into a full-blown threat against the highest court in the land.

In Joe Reeder, Max Collins has invented up a compelling, quirky and totally believable hero caught up in a twisted mystery with enough twists and turns as to leave a crossword junky dizzy.   Teamed with Patti Rogers, a smart and tenacious F.B.I. agent, Reeder is a modern day Sherlock Holmes matching wits with an unknown advisory whose ultimate goal is nothing less than altering the landscape of American jurisprudence for generations to come.

Collins’ ability to capture the social and political schism of our times delivers a truly frightening and plausible scenario.  “Supreme Justice” is a taut thriller you will not be able to put down once you’ve picked it up.  This is a master at work.