SWIFT VENGEANCE
By T. Jefferson Parker
Putnam Books
353 pgs
Lindsay Rakes is a former drone
operator for the U.S. Air Force. In the
end, her work of dropping missiles on enemy targets a world away becomes too
much for her own conscience. The post guilt eventually ruins her marriage,
losing both her husband and son through to the abuse of alcohol. Ultimately it
is San Diego Private Investigator, Roland Ford, who comes to Rakes’ rescue,
seeing the psychological scars she carries. He can identify as a Marine veteran
who had served in Fallujah. He eventually gets Rakes in AA and on a path of
sobriety.
As the book opens, Ford is still
grieving for the loss of his wife in a single engine plane crash a year earlier.
When Rakes shows up at his doorstep with a note threatening her life via
beheading, he puts that melancholy aside. The note is written in a stylized Arabic
calligraphy and the author signs himself Caliphornia openly identifying himself
as a Muslim and alluding to her service activities. As it turns out, the other
two men in her unit, also drone operators, had received the same thread on
similar stationary. Ford takes Rakes note to FBI Agent Joan Taucher, a
dedicated warrior obsessed with protecting her community from suffering
terrorist attacks of any kind. She sees the threat as real and together, they
begin their hunt for the elusive villain.
When one of the other two targeted
veterans is murdered and beheaded, both Ford and Taucher find themselves in a
race with a madman bent on a very singular vengeance. He has not chosen his
targets at random, but because of their involvement with one specific mission.
Now it’s up to the world weary P.I. to find that connection before the killer
strikes again on an ever larger scale.
“Swift Vengeance,” like all good
thrillers, works because of Parker’s ability to create believable characters,
both good and bad. His insights into the human soul with its flaws and strengths
is what propels the story. It allows us to know these people as if they were
our own friends and neighbors. When the climax arrives, we’ve become invested
and it carries us to a powerful finale cruel in its truth and inevitability.
The last page of this amazing book is one this reviewer will never forget.
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