Badger Games [Hardcover]

Jon A. Jackson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2001

Jon Jackson is a master of mystery whose books the Chicago Tribune has called "addictive." Badger Games finds Jackson at the top of his form, as Joe Service and Helen Sedlacek find themselves in the middle of an international cat-and-mouse intrigue beginning in Kosovo and stretching to the mountains of Montana. A former freelance contractor to the Mob, Joe Service is now in the employ of the Lucani, a cadre of rogue government agents who have recently lost an operative known only as Franko. Franko, last seen in the path of a drug-smuggling ring in a Kosovar mountain village, was from Montana -- so Joe and mafia princess Helen head to Butte to see what they can learn. But they're not the only ones. A volatile mercenary nicknamed the Badger is also looking for Franko; and the Lucani have sent backup -- to help Joe or to contain him, he's not sure -- in the form of a bombshell who rivals Lara Croft for sex appeal and dangerous moves. Taut, masterful, and wickedly clever, Badger Games is a note-perfect thriller from one of the masters of the genre.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Detective Sergeant Mulheisen, titular hero of Jackson's freewheeling Mulheisen series (Man with an Axe, etc.), is all but absent from this ninth installment. Occupying center stage are his nemeses, freelance pistoleros Joe Service and Helen Sedlacek, this time caught in a web of double- and triple-crosses between secret U.S. intelligence cabals and deep-cover agents from the former Yugoslavia. Joe and Helen, once employed by the mob, are now working for a former American colonel who runs a vigilante group called the Lucani. Composed of intelligence and military personnel fed up with the sluggishness of governments and tribunals, the Lucani exact violent justice on international criminals. Following the disappearance of Lucani agent "Franko" (who recently penetrated a Serbian drug cartel), the colonel recruits Joe and Helen to chase the erstwhile agent from Kosovo to the Serbian community in Butte, Mont. Complicating matters is a trigger-happy Serbian-American thug named Bazok (the "Badger"), who may be a cartel assassin or a rival deep-cover agent. Joe is more interested in retiring to a quiet corner of bucolic Montana so that he and Helen can enjoy quality time together than in finding Franko, but he takes notice when the irrepressible Badger shows up and starts blasting his way through Butte, also on Franko's trail. Joe, Helen and their ilk have too much fun with sex, drugs, guns and cliched banter to really get down to the business of international crime fighting. Without the counterbalancing weight of Mulheisen, the larks overwhelm Jackson's intricate suspense plot.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Joe Service and Helen Sedlacek, two of the featured players in Jackson's superb Fang Mulheisen novels, are now on their own. Formerly a freelancer for the Mafia, Service is currently employed by a group of rogue government agents called the Lucani. Traveling with Mafia princess Sedlacek, his lover and co-conspirator, Service heads to Montana to track down a Lucani agent who went missing in Kosovo and may have been spotted in Butte. Maneuvers and counter-maneuvers dominate the action as Joe and Helen look for a way to cut their Lucani ties while shadow boxing with an assassin called the Badger, who is in Butte to kill the missing agent. Jackson balances all these elements effectively, but it is the interpersonal dynamics between Joe and Helen that occupy center stage: Can a couple of good-hearted criminals with competing egos find a quiet life for themselves in the Montana wilderness? We hope so, but we also miss the galvanizing presence of Detroit cop Mulheisen, determined to put Service behind bars. Joe and Helen do fine on their own, but here's hoping Jackson brings the whole gang back together eventually. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 330 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press; 1 edition (June 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871138514
• ISBN-13: 978-0871138514
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,919,963 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Holy Ned! Don't Read This One First! It's #9 in a Series!, January 18, 2005

By 

Chris Ward (Costa Rica) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Badger Games (Hardcover)

The reviewer below missed a lot-- the Fang Mulheisen books are one long story about a detective and the colorful people he works with and chases down. Don't read this one first: read and savor the first 8 books in the series. They are: The Die Hard, The Blind Pig, Grootka, Hit on the House, Dead Man, Dead Folks, Man With an Axe, and La Donna Detroit. (And his new Fang novel, No Man's Dog, is #10.) These are GREAT novels, full of perceptive writing and compelling characters. Get to know them and this book will enchant you. Don't, and you'll be like the reviewer below, clueless.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not very compelling and kind of confusing too, August 20, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Badger Games (Hardcover)

This is the first book I've read by Jon Jackson. I think there are other books with the same protagonists, and maybe if I'd read those first I would have liked this book better. I did not find the protagonists interesting at all. In fact, I found the villain--even though I think the author tried very hard to make him unlikeable--to be a more interesting and even occasionally compelling character. The plot had some trouble too...either I wasn't reading carefully enough, or there were some major unanswered questions about the motives of several characters. Last of all the author tended to use various names to refer to the same character (e.g. sometimes calling a person by his last name, sometimes his first, sometimes a title) and I thought this was a bit confusing since there are a lot of characters involved in the story.

To summarize...this book was entertaining enough to finish, but mostly I was glad when it ended so I could start another book.