(popsyndicate.com, Nov 13, Stefan Halley)
Sean Chercover follows up his debut novel with another solid entry.
After getting critical praise for his debut novel, Big City, Bad Blood, author Sean Chercover returns with his Shytown gumshoe Ray Dudgeon. Big City, Bad Blood is a terrific classic crime noir style story that turned a lot of heads. Chercover tosses off the sophomore slump with Trigger City and brings Dudgeon back with another nail biting story of corporate espionage and big business cover-ups.
After the events of the last book, Ray finds himself falling on hard times. He is barely paying the bills by doing spousal snooping. When a retired U.S. Army Intelligence office walks in and hands Ray a check for $50,000 if he’ll work exclusively for him, despite his better judgment, Ray says yes. On the surface the case looks cut and dry. Isaac Richmond wants to know about his estranged daughter’s life before she was gunned
down in cold blood in her apartment.
Ray is given a file on Joan Richmond and asked to just look it over and check out her apartment before deciding on wither or not to accept the case. Of course, nothing is as it seems and the simple case of the murder of the head of accounting for a large department store by a co-worker soon turns into a dark hole of corporate greed and possible treason.
Chercover does an excellent job of providing plot twists that keep the audience guessing. He doesn’t telegraph the twist and turns of the story keeping readers guessing. Trigger City is an fun continuation of the Dudgeon story and makes the reader hungry for the next installment.
It would be easy to lose focus and veer wildly off when dealing with corporate espionage, government cover-ups and multiple three letter government organizations. Chercover never goes into the realm of the unbelievable. Ray pieces all parts together in a logical manner and Chercover doesn’t repeat the plot devices of the first novel. As the investigation grows more and more complex, he is able to maintain focus drive the story forward until the end.
Trigger City is a fast paced well crafted follow up to Big City, Bad Blood. Chercover mentioned that he is working on another Ray Dudgeon novel as well as other books. He knows crime noir and I look forward to whatever his next project will be. Crime noir might not be as popular as it once was but with authors like Sean Chercover, it has a chance to once again become a fiction mainstay.
Get your signed copy of Trigger City by Sean Chercover at www.vjbooks.com today!
