AGAINST THE LAW

His latest mission takes Joe the Bouncer back to the last place in the world he wants to visit. But he won’t roost there, or anywhere else, for very long at all.

Before he was anointed sheriff of New York’s crime families, “911 for people who don’t call the cops,” strip-club bouncer Joe Brody put in his time with special forces in Afghanistan, where he left a good bit of his physical and mental well-being behind. So he’s not eager to pursue the Helmand bandit king Zahir al Zilli, aka Zahir the Shadow, who’s been hijacking heroin shipments those New York families have every right to. But money talks, and half a million dollars demands that attention must be paid, especially when it’s bumped up to $2 million. So Joe heads off to Afghanistan, where he’s happy to find his thieving friend Yelena Noylaskya, who’s been missing since his last adventure in The Hard Stuff (2019). The reunited pair soon discover that Zahir’s only a front for a far more powerful enemy: the Wildwater Corporation, whose founding CEO, Bob Richards, has dreams of world domination that only begin with intercepted shipments of White Angel. Cobbling together a motley crew that draws from the ranks of the FBI and the New York families, Joe and Yelena return home to challenge a cadre of villains that include rogue military contractor Rick Toomey, sociopathic assassin Victoria St. Smythe, and of course the Wildwater staff. Everyone involved is heavily armed, ruthless, and possessed of an irresistibly off-kilter sense of humor. Fans will know not to get too attached to supporting characters with half-lives shorter than that of fissionable uranium, which ends up making an appearance as well.

Supercharged intrigue for readers who’d rather get swept off their feet than think too hard about what’s going on.