If you like your suspense hot, hard and brutal, Dead Reckoning should suit you fine. If it pushes the bounds of reason in a few of its survivals, it compensates plenty in grit a gall. Its twists and turns are numerous, its pace unrelenting and its body count appalling: a fast and breathless rush which can scarcely fail to satisfy those with a taste for what my dad used to call "the mud, the blood and the beer."
Jimmy Taggert lost his best friend in Viet Nam to the senseless violence of a savage quartet of VC. And avenged him in spades. Thirty years later, sheriff of a small town near the Canadian border, he loses his wife to the happy trigger of sociopath Michael Baker during an opportunistic bank robbery which had been meant to go much more smoothly. He takes that loss just as personally.
Between Jimmy's smarts and good instincts, and Baker's arrogance, a confrontation is inevitable. In fact, both being focused upon a small area, they have several run-ins in which both take their lumps, and their losses, neither of them gracefully. Luck and blind, bloody-minded determination throw them together repeatedly, the last time for the culmination of Baker's plans to commit an historic act of terrorism at nearby Niagara Falls.
Mr. Furlani shows us, in gripping and very effective fashion, the ugly side of life in the second millennium, through two characters who will stick in the memory long after you've laid the book down. In Baker we see the destructiveness and random violence typical of those who take up killing as a method of expression, and in Taggert we see the upholder of Society and all the best values of Mankind. Neither of them is stereotyped, neither blunted or fuzzy, and both are delightful in their own ways, though there's little to like in Baker. Mr. Furlani's writing is literate and vivid, if a bit fraught with favored turns of speech, an easy and lively read. You may gag in places, rage in others, but you are unlikely to put it down until you've turned the last page.
Kaththea9/3/2002
After thirty years as Darien?s Sheriff, Jimmy Taggert is set to retire and enjoy a leisurely life with his wife. All of that changes forever when Michael Baker, a terrorist wanted by the FBI, strolls into the small rural town, looking for an easy score to fund his covert operation. The First National Bank is an enticing target. When the dust settles, Taggert?s wife lies dying, cradled in her husband?s arms, gunned down in cold blood by Baker. Taggert is seeking more than justice---he?s seeking more than retribution. He won?t stop until he has his day of reckoning. He won?t rest until Baker is dead.
Baker holds the President of the United States hostage at the brink of Niagara Falls, threatening to plunge the Peace Bridge into the frigid waters of the Niagara River, sending the President and hundreds of hostages over the Falls. Sending them to a watery grave. Only one man stands in his way. For Jimmy Taggert---it?s personal---extremely personal!
Dead Reckoning is a gripping, fast-paced thriller.