THE SINISTER

5 stars out of 5

Bruno Johnson is a wanted man. The former LAPD cop, who also spent some time in jail, has been hiding out from the law in a hotel with his pregnant wife, Marie; they're waiting to return to Costa Rica to rejoin the children they rescued from lives of almost unimaginable horror. He's also wrestling with PTSD after delivering his kind of justice to a motorcycle gang during which he was seriously injured - and during which he lost a son he never knew he had.

Marie can't wait to get back to the kids and Bruno's elderly father, who is dying of cancer; Bruno is hot to trot as well, at least until he gets a call from FBI Deputy Director Dan Chulack, who begs him to find his recently kidnapped granddaughter. Despite Marie's protests, Bruno reluctantly agrees - it's an offer from an old friend he can't refuse. It'll just take a day or two, Bruno counters. Then we'll be on our way, he insists. Enter that old "best-laid plans" expression.

In fact, it enters in more ways than one. The second hitch in the gitalong comes with the out-of-the-blue appearance of a woman who claims to be Bruno's long-gone-missing mother; now in a wheelchair, she insists she wants to make up for lost time and accompany him and Marie when they return to Costa Rica and the ailing husband she left in the lurch. That encounter, BTW, led to one of the best lines I've read in a book in quite some time (hint: It's his impression of his mother the first time he sees her).

Problem is, Bruno's search for the kidnapped child and his mother's past indiscretions (some of which landed her in jail) get twisted up, requiring him to head into dangerous gang territory even though he's not fully healed. But he's got help from his big old pal Karl Drago and his uber-capable dog Waldo. I don't remember Drago from the only other book I read in this series, The Heartless, which is the seventh (somehow I must have missed the eighth, in which I'm pretty sure Drago made an appearance). At any rate, he's an impressive character - and if anything, his dog is even more impressive.

For the most part, everything works out in the end - but you'll just have to read it for yourself to find out how. I'll be watching for the next installment - hope I don't miss another one. Thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to read and review a pre-release copy of another one.

The Sinister by David Putnam (Oceanview Publishing, February 2022); 369 pp.