Customer Reviews

Dynamite Road (Captain Richard Bolitho Adventures)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Weiss Agency has been commissioned to investigate corruption at a Northern California airport. Ex-cop P.I. Scott Weiss sends tough-as-nails operative Jim Bishop on assignment to infiltrate and uncover illegal activities. Weiss begins a few investigations of his own, one of which ties a dangerous assassin to the case Bishop is working. Weiss attempts to reel Bishop in, but Bishop forges ahead according to his own rules which lands him on a clandestine rendezvous in the middle of nowhere. He soon finds that his cover is compromised with no way of communicating a warning about what he discovered. In a race against time, Weiss must use his instincts and Bishop his hard edge to take down a criminal conspiracy.

The characters are tough, passionate, and humanly flawed. The plot is wound tight with enough cliff-hangers to keep you teetering on the edge. Guaranteed to keep you turning the page--hard-boiled detective fiction at its finest!

Scott Weiss, ex-cop, now owner of a private investigation agency, sends Jim Bishop, one of his operatives, to a small airport in northern California. Ray Grambling, part owner of the FBO, has concerns that one of his pilots, Chris Wannamaker, may be involved in some kind of very shady deal with Bernie Hirschorn, the other FBO partner.

Bishop, operating undercover as Frank Kennedy, enjoys living on the edge He pushes Chris to the limit by seducing his wife and spreading rumors about his drinking in hopes that he (Bishop) will be hired to replace Chris as the pilot for the big job that Hirschorn has planned.

In the meantime, Ben Fry, whom we later realize is also know as the Shadowman, has gone to great lengths (even to implanting a device under his skin that won't show up in strip searches) to get himself imprisoned in the most secure prison in California, one reserved for incorrigibles and extremely violent offenders.

Weiss, during the course of another investigation, realizes that several people have been killed or have disappeared in seemingly unrelated events, and he finds a startling connection. They are all related to Whip, a man who specialized in creating new identities for criminals, identities so secure that once created, no law enforcement agency has been able to penetrate them. Whip, having knowledge of who became whom, is terrified that he may also have become a target, so he is placed in deep protective custody in a maximum security prison (guess what's coming?).

The book is a little unusual in that we see the story evolve from three points of view: Bishop's, Weiss's, and the first-person narrative of another Weiss employee. He stands in awe of Weiss's understanding of human nature. The narrator, whose name we never learn, inadvertently solves the Case of the Spanish Virgin and discovers some key elements of the case against the Shadowman. If this all sounds a little hokey, I suppose that's because it is. Still, a very entertaining read.

In this action thriller, an investigative team has to get through a tangled web of brutal killers to get to the evil Shadowman, a killer so cold blooded and efficient that his mere presence stiffens you in fear. Jim Bishop is the field agent who thinks he's a match for the dreaded hitman, both mentally and physically. He works for Scott Weiss, an ex-cop running a PI agency and a man with uncanny perceptions into the criminal mind.

When Bishop learns that the Shadowman's target is the mysterious Julie Wyant, aka, Julie Angel, a redhead whose beauty tends to intoxicate men's minds, and that the only man who knows her new identity and location is in protective custody in a high tech maximum security prison, he realizes where the Shadowman is going or already is.

Weiss tries to rein his agent in, knowing that he's gotten involved with Kathleen, a married woman, in order to gain intel on her pilot husband who works for Hirshhorn, the murderous leader of a criminal conspiracy and the man who hired the Shadowman. But Bishop's wiles get him into the heart of the operation and defeats any attempt to save him from his own fearless hide.

In the realm of the action thriller, humor and irony are qualities that set a book and its author apart. To illustrate that in this case, here's an excerpt. Bishop had just saved Kathleen from certain death and she saved him from the same fate by grabbing the killer's gun. She holds it on Bishop, the man who has broken her heart.

"Kathleen thought so too, she thought she just might shoot him too. She sure as hell wanted to. She had shot that other man, Goldmunsen, after all, and she had felt really good about it. If she shot Bishop she thought she would feel even more good. Shooting people seemed to work for her. In fact, she was sick and tired of not shooting people."

(Review has appeared in NoHo>LA, a Los Angeles newspaper) Visit the author's review site at http://variagate.com/revumain.htm?amazon

It's hard to say what made me like this as much as I did. While the suspense is good, it's the crisp writing and the very intriguing characters that really drew me in and kept me going. I'd not read Klavan before, but I can guarantee I'll be reading him again

Known by employees, clients, and the author's family as the Agency, Weiss Investigation is a San Francisco private detective firm. Owner Scott Weiss assigns Jim Bishop to investigate the questionable flight activities of Chris Wannamaker at a small airport off of Driscoll in Northern California. When Jim arrives in town, he introduces himself to Ray Grambling as Frank Kennedy his new pilot. Jim meets Chris' wife Kathleen, Director of Operations, and quickly seduces her to obtain information.

Meanwhile Weiss investigates three recent deaths that seem connected to only him. Weiss, a former cop, recognizes the signature of his enemy, the assassin Shadowman. Soon Weiss' work ties in to the havoc that Bishop is causing. As the murder count rises and somehow femme fatale Julie Wyant is in the center of the storm if only because Weiss cannot ignore her lure, the two sleuths must stop an enormous murder conspiracy that only the Shadowman could achieve.

Though the conspiracy that ties all the crimes together seems stretched, fans of hard boiled detectives that make Spade and Marlow look like wimps will enjoy DYNAMITE ROAD. The story line places the classic elements of the 1930s sleuths inside a modern day setting. The comparison between the by the book Weiss and the break it even if its okay Bishop is a delight to follow as they disagree about the means to achieve the end. Especially ironic is that the former cannot resist the Mary Astor like Julie while the latter sleeps with any woman (when he is not beating someone up). Fans of the ultra hard boiled detective tale will want to follow the case files of this Agency.

Harriet Klausner

This is ellen in Atlanta - When I learned that Klavan would be starting a series featuring a private investigating firm, I started to worry - I stopped worrying when at the 1st sitting of reading Dynamite Road, I was over 125 pages in! It is wonderful and is gritty, exciting, and the characters are of the old school of PI's and a great start to a wonderful series - long live the Weiss Investigative Firm!

This is the first novel I've read by Andrew and I have read 130 thrillers in the past year. 10 occupy my "hall of fame" shelf. Dynamite Road makes it 11. In the context of a tough guy mystery, Klavan spins out original gut punching turns of phrase in which I delight. My copy bleeds with yellow highlighter. Ignore, the name Shadowman and read the book for its brilliant simplicity.

LOVE this book and series of Weiss and Bishop. I have been waiting what feels like forever to see them released for Kindle.
THANK YOU publishers!
Now, lets keep the ball rolling and get Shotgun Alley up there too.
And Klavan, how about some more of these books?
You have created a couple of awesome characters here...please return and take them, and us, on another adventure!

Andrew Klavan's book Dynamite Road is a good read. Sthe story is good and strong, as well as intriguing.
I enjoyed the book as will most mystery readers.

Enjoy

J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"

I read Klavan's "Empire of Lies", really enjoyed it and thought I'd try something else by him. This book is just as good, but without the author's politics inserted into the story. You'd think that this book might be a little less charged than "Empire of Lies" for that reason, but it makes up in grittiness what it lacks in political observation. This is hardcore men's fiction with a lot of violence, a little gruesomeness, and ultra-tough (but romantic-at-heart) male characters.