Review of "Riders on the Storm, A Sam McCain Mystery," by Ed Gorman

 Review of

Riders on the Storm, A Sam McCain Mystery, by Ed Gorman, ISBN 9781605986258

Five out of five stars

Very context appropriate murder mystery

 While the book was written in 2014, the historical context is 1971 in Black River Falls, a small town in Iowa. The Vietnam war is still very active and several men from the town have been killed in the war and several others came back missing body parts and part of their mental stability. The main character is Sam McCain, who was drafted, but a severe auto accident in boot camp kept him from participating in combat. He now works as a lawyer and part-time private investigator and tries to keep his life in order.

 Some of his boyhood friends are among those disabled from the war and the main character in that group is a man named Will Cullen that is still haunted by his memory of gunning down an innocent Vietnamese girl. When Cullen joins a veteran’s group against the war, one of the veterans that is very pro-war severely beats him. When that antagonist is then found beaten to death, Cullen is the logical suspect. Convinced of Cullen’s innocence, Sam begins his own private investigation.

 The story is complicated as it includes many of the social stress of the last years of the Vietnam War and the difficult consequences to the men that fought and lost some of their health as well as their wives and other family members that now have to live with and adjust to the mental and physical problems that their men came back with. There is also a senator running for re-election that is rabidly pro-war that encapsulates the unrelenting political pressure of the political hawks. The Senator also does not hesitate to use disabled veterans in his campaign.

 It is this social context that makes the story so interesting, although the reader should have some knowledge of the history of the rough aspects of the war debate in the United States in the early seventies. Other than that, the story is a fairly standard murder mystery with some logical suspects, adulterous and criminal behavior and men and women moving from lover to lover. A microcosm of the social upheaval of the early seventies in the United States.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review of "The Autumn Dead," by Ed Gorman

  Review of The Autumn Dead , by Ed Gorman, ISBN 0345356322 Four out of five stars An aging ex-cop is handed a case to retrieve a case   Jack Dwyer is an ex-cop that now works for a private security agency. Most of what he does is bust shoplifters and other petty criminals. He is a bit overweight and has few prospects to improve his situation. However, he has an interesting past that is focused on his high school years.   A woman that was a flame of his in high school and has retained her beauty suddenly pops back into his life. She offers Jack a significant amount of money to retrieve a suitcase from the house of a man she had been living with. Since she has a key and claims that the suitcase is really her property and she still has a significant sway over Jack, he agrees to take the job.   When he gets there he finds the owner unconscious from a blow on the back of the head. This is the first hint that the case is much more complex than Jack thought. Hi...
Read more

Review of "The Forty-Minute War," by Janet and Chris Morris

  Review of The Forty-Minute War , by Janet and Chris Morris, ISBN 0671559869 Three out of five stars Absurd initial premise and bad ending   This book begins with an absurd premise, not the event, but the context. A group of committed terrorists manage to acquire a nuclear weapon and a plane. The manage to fly it from Saudi Arabia to Washington D. C. where they detonate it. Distraught over the knowledge that his wife and family have been killed, the American President orders a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. They retaliate and it is all over in 40 minutes. After ordering the strike, the American President takes a gun and kills himself.   There are two reasons why this premise is absurd, one major and the other minor. The major one is that the intelligence services of the United States were aware of the nuclear weapon and had an elite anti-terrorist team on the ground ready to take out the terrorists. However, the team was given a stand-down order. Whil...
Read more

Review of "Heat," by Mike Lupica

  Review of Heat , by Mike Lupica, ISBN 9780142407578 Five out of five stars More about life than sports   Satchel Paige is arguably the all-time best baseball pitcher. One of his teammates once said, “The good lord didn’t give Satchel an arm, he gave him a whip.” Michael Arroyo was also born with what his father said was, “the arm.” Even though he is still young enough to play Little League baseball, Michael can throw an 80-mph fastball and he has excellent control. His goal is to help his team move on to the Little League World Series.   While baseball is his joy, his life is complicated. His father brought Michael and his seventeen-year-old bother Carlos with him in an escape from Cuba and they now live in New York City. Their father died suddenly of a heart attack and the boys are terrified that social services will learn of their plight and either separate them into foster care or send them back to Cuba.   With the help of some kindly neighbors, the ...
Read more