Customer Reviews

Deadgame: A John Marquez Crime Novel

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This one's a keeper--clearly Kirk Russell's best novel yet. Among many evolutions that take place in this third story of what I hope will someday be a dozen John Marquez mysteries, we finally get the full measure of the hero himself. Yes, Marquez is a tough guy with a tender streak, a hopeful cynic--he's all these contradictions and complexities. But there's more. In this story, Marquez reveals a lot more about his fears and sense of unrealized potential, uncertainty about his capacity as a husband and father, worries about his own future, so intertwined with the Fish & Game's Special Ops Unit. In short, he reveals himself to be a lot like us.

Disclosure: as a long-time San Francisco Bay environmental advocate, I confess to a certain and unabashed bias for Russell's yarns, and Deadgame especially. He's gotten it right about the plight of the Delta sturgeon (and frankly, the whole Delta). His descriptions of the dichotomous beauty and fragility of the Delta are evocative, well-researched and compelling. Reading this book, I kept flashing back to an earlier SF Bay champion who told us of "another world there among the Bay's brackish reaches"...Jack London himself.

Bravo! Memo to Kirk Russell: send us more, and soon.

California Fish & Game Special Operations Unit Warden John Marquez is concerned with the poaching of sturgeon in the Sacramento/San Joaquin River delta. Someone was killing the sturgeon to "extract" the eggs to make caviar and is unconcerned about collateral damage to other fish. However, Marquez does not have the manpower to stop the poachers as his unit has shrunk down to three while the criminals have gotten smarter, bigger, and more energetic, and the FBI steps in and out looking for sound byte poser cases only.

Still he tries using informants to help him catch the crooks such as former sturgeon poacher Abe Raburn who Marquez pressures into testifying against former KGB agent Nikolai Ludovna, who came to the states allegedly as a realtor, but is the caviar poaching kingpin. Abe proves uninformative perhaps out of fear of retaliation. Russian-born field guide Anna Burdovsky agrees to help, but she vanishes without a trace following a meeting with specialty food storeowner Don August, who Marquez believes sells illegal caviar. With potential problems at home, Marquez concentrates on expediting Anna from danger though he fears he is too late.

The key to this fine fish and wildlife police procedural is the different personalities that make up the sturgeon poaching crowd as readers will understand the economic motivations of poachers, sellers, storeowners, users, law enforcement officials, and informants. The story line is somewhat typical of the undermanned and under-equipped cops struggling to defeat superior forces while knowing a victory today just means a new criminal takes over the territory. DEAD GAME is a fabulous tale that entertains the audience while also educating readers with how complex the environmental-economic issues are.

Harriet Klausner

If you have enjoyed reading the other Marquez novels you will certainly not want to miss this read. Author Russell has brought the tension level to a new level in this story. No wasted moments spent reading this book, in fact it was hard to put it down at all. If you arent familiar with the Marquez books any will stand alone but this is my personal favorite with it's sharp delivery and fast paced action.

Based on Amazon Recommendations, and the reviews of some of my favorite detective fiction writers, I picked up Kirk Russell's `Dead Game'. Third in this eco-thriller series, `Dead Game; continues the story of the Special Operations Unit (SOU) lead undercover agent John Marquez of the California Department of Fish and Game.

Marquez is ex-DEA turned Fish & Game warden, which isn't a typical career path, so you know he's got baggage. He does genuinely love the wildlife of the bay area, which is evident throughout the story as he rather poetically describes the beauty of the wetland sloughs. As Marquez investigates the illegal caviar sturgeon-poaching trade, you learn more and more about the fascinating and largely unknown byways of the northern California slough water system. Missing is a map of the area, which would definitely have helped keep it all straight, as the area involves hundreds of square miles; and at times the action seems to stall as the investigators traverse up and down Northern California following suspects.

Russell deals head on with the realities of fighting crime on the behalf of wildlife at a time of drastic government cutbacks due to California's ruinous fiscal mismanagement. With a skeletal crew, and the threat of complete disbandment of the undercover unit, Marquez must quickly, yet carefully navigate not only the waterways of the slough, but the intricacies of the Russian mob run Sturgeon-poaching business. Along the way, Marquez finds himself battling the FBI in what becomes a turf conflict between State and Federal authority.

With plenty of chase scenes in cars and boats, tricky fights with the scum of the illegal poaching trade, and undercover treachery, `Dead Game' is an entertaining and unique spin on the standard crime detective novel.

This is a great read, set a present-day thriller in the delta of California's Sacramento River. Russell gives us a powerful sense of place, confjures up a whole new breed of creey bad guys, and raises our environmental awareness without sounding like Al Gore on a bad day.

The first thing I did when I finished the book was to make a reservation for brunch at the Ryde Hotel--mentioned twice in Dead Game--so I could head out to the delta and experience again the sights, sounds and smells Russell evokes in his book.