Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Review: The Khan Dilemma

Author: Ron Goodreau
Format: paperback ARC galley proof -282 pages
Characters: Rich Danko, Max Siegel,  Franny Rappaport
Subject: corruption, National Security, rogue intelligence
Setting: Las Cruces, California
Genre: crime fiction; suspense
Source: ARC from iUniverse publishing
Challenge: ARC cleanup challenge, Thrillers and Suspsense

An outstanding debut thriller. Cashing in on the abundence of homeland security rogue operations scenarios sweeping the literary and video world, Ron Goodreau, practicing DA and new author, gives us a tight, chillingly believable plot with a host of good guys/bad guys (who's who we're never sure), fast paced action, excellent dialogue, and characters you can definitely picture.

A young Pakistani, Raheem Khan, has been caught red-handed by a citizen neighbor at the scene of a double homicide in a quiet residential neighborhood. Rich Danko the current DA in Las Cruces is under investigation for corruption when he is approached by FBI agents to squelch Khan's indictment avoiding a splashy trial, and urged to make the whole thing go away. Hoping to work a quid pro quo with the Feds, he hands off what he considers to be a career buster mess to his hated rival and assistant DA Max Siegel. Max immediately smells a rat and enlists the help of his favorite investigator, retired Special Forces paratrooper Franny Rappaport. Both Max and Franny dislike the FBI's handpicked lackey Detective Dale Cox and set out to discover "the rest of the story."

The plot rolls along, the pages turn quickly, and within a few hours the incredible ending arrives. It's a story worthy of a movie script. I hope that Max Siegel, the hunky protagonist turns up in more books. He is a lawyer one could almost learn to love.

Many thanks to iUniverse for providing the review galley of this great read.

1 comment:

  1. I was just going through my pile of books not yet entered on Library Thing, adding them in, and came to this book. I had received an offer for it...and while I really hesitate to take a self published book...I did.
    And then as I was entering it, I remember I had read a very good review of it somewhere...thank goodness for Google!

    ReplyDelete

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