When Cornelius McPherson, a former highway maintenance man, finds himself trapped in a tunnel he helped create decades earlier, he’s horrified to discover the well-preserved, frozen arm of a fellow worker. McPherson remembers a secret the man whispered to him—that he knew who assassinated John F. Kennedy. When McPherson also turns up dead, CJ Floyd steps in to sort out the details, in the process going on his own hunt for the presidential assassin. CJ’s journey is a retrospective trek that has him fielding CIA plots, mafia dons, and Cuban conspirators. But it’s not until he realizes that there were two attempts on Kennedy’s life prior to his actual assassination in 1963—one in Chicago and one in Tampa—that he’s able to hone in on who might have really killed the president. The investigation takes him from the pristine mountains of Colorado to the muggy swamps of Louisiana, and ultimately leads him to a grieving, long-silent, Louisiana backwoods Creole mother who may hold the key to what happened. Robert Greer brings his trademark complex but never confusing plot, colorful cast of characters, and stylistic brio to one of America’s enduring mysteries in this dazzling whodunit.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Greer's latest C.J. Floyd novel, which ties the JFK assassination to a thriller plot, will appeal mainly to conspiracy buffs, though the author offers little original material or theory. The historic crime resurfaces in the present day when an earthquake damages the Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel in Colorado, revealing (in a move reminiscent of the 1984 film Flashpoint) the corpse of Antoine Ducane, who had hinted that he knew the truth behind the murder and then disappeared in the 1970s. The discovery of Ducane's body sets off a chain of violent events, and soon Greer's series detective and antiques dealer C.J. Floyd (last seen in 2006's The Fourth Perspective) gets involved. Greer derails any suspense with flashbacks to mobsters Santo Trafficante and Carlos Marcello discussing the need to kill the president. Given the many plot holes (why did the mob let Ducane live for a decade after Dallas?), Greer might want to stick to giving C.J. less controversial mysteries to solve. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
“Greer gives the JFK killing a newish spin in a riveting story that will make conspiracy buffs and fans of African American mysteries pleased that they stayed the course.”
—Library Journal
“[CJ] Floyd is up against the biggest mystery of his life, and perhaps the biggest of all time: Who really killed JFK? If anyone is up to tackling the granddaddy of all conspiracy theories, it's Floyd, a dogged investigator with years of experience uncovering the truth in pursuit of all manner of crooks, con men and killers.”
—Westword
—Library Journal
“[CJ] Floyd is up against the biggest mystery of his life, and perhaps the biggest of all time: Who really killed JFK? If anyone is up to tackling the granddaddy of all conspiracy theories, it's Floyd, a dogged investigator with years of experience uncovering the truth in pursuit of all manner of crooks, con men and killers.”
—Westword
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Some Mysteries Will Never Be Laid to Rest,
By
This review is from: The Mongoose Deception (CJ Floyd Mystery Series) (Hardcover)
Robert Greer weaves a pulsating tale of suspense and drama. When an earthquake shakes up the Eisenhower Tunnel, it reveals the severed arm of a miner, Antoine Ducane. Fellow miner , Cornelius McPherson, who is just days away from retirement, recognizes the tattooed arm as belonging to Ducane, a co-worker who vanished without a word. An investigation is started, which is further complicated when McPherson, who had been talking to newspersons, is murdered in a drive-by shooting. Ducane had told McPherson that he knew who killed JFK. Detective Gus Cavalaris starts his own investigation and soon finds himself entangled with the mob and the FBI. Aging gangsters scramble to cover-up any involvement that they may have had in the plot to kill Kennedy. Old theories are revisited and the plot thickens as to who and why JFK was murdered.
This book is very exciting with lots of non-stop action. I believe that it would make a good movie, lots of colorful quirky characters. This offering has a multitude of characters and the author did an excellent job of managing them. Each of them played a vital role in keeping the story true to form. This was my first time reading Robert Greer and I am glad I did. I will definitely be reading more of his mysteries. Margaret Ball APOOO BookClub
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Deep Mystery With Conspiracy Theory,
By
This review is from: The Mongoose Deception (CJ Floyd Mystery Series) (Hardcover)
Author Robert Greer started out mining the field of black private investigators with his series hero, C. J. Floyd. Floyd is a hybrid, part bail bondsman and part antiques dealer (though he's since given up the bail bonds business and bountyhunting). Comparisons were immediately made to Walter Mosely's long-running unlicensed private eye, Easy Rawlins. Easy's adventures to date have gone from 1948 to 1968 and seem to have locked into the late 1960s. Floyd is contemporary, but the focus of his investigations seem to mix current crimes with past events of a historical nature. On the surface, there might be some resemblance between the two series, but there are vast differences.
The early Floyd adventures concentrated on the bail bonds business and moved quickly into murder investigations. The last three novels have their foundations anchored more deeply in Floyd's interest in the antiques business and conspiracy theories. As a result, Greer's already complex plots have deepened even more, with mixed results. In THE MONGOOSE DECEPTION, Greer put Floyd directly in the path of a conspiracy cover-up involving the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The body of Antoine Ducane is discovered in the Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel in Colorado, Floyd's home state, and events move ponderously to involve the private eye. In fact, Floyd doesn't even step onto the book until nearly eighty pages in, and by then it's almost too late for the reader to take interest. When a second man is murdered who had ties to Ducane, Floyd starts poking into the truth of the assassination. He immediately draws fire from mafia dons, a JFK conspiracy investigator, and even the CIA. His fellow antiques dealer, Mario Santoni, ends up getting offered as the patsy for the assassination by mafia bosses in their 80s (which strains credulity a bit), so Floyd has more personal stakes involved than just his own curiosity. The JFK assassination has fueled a couple of generations now, and the mysteries involving his death will probably never be satisfactorily resolved for everyone, but Greer takes another stab at it. Conspiracy theorists and junkies will probably enjoy this one. But for me everything got a little convoluted. There were too many characters to keep up with (I finally had to keep a notebook to keep everyone separated) and too many subplots (although all were interesting). It's a case of too many good things thrown in at once. The subplots with Floyd's mom and ex-girlfriend could have waited for a more opportune book and allowed the author to focus more on this investigation. I think I would have enjoyed a stripped-down version a little more myself. Greer's writing is solid, and I like a lot of dialogue in the novels I read, so he fits the bill there as well. His descriptions of Denver and Louisiana are dead on as well. And there are a lot of esoteric facts along the way. The problem was that too many of them were too familiar. The JFK assassination has been, literally, done to death. Obviously Greer felt he had more to say on the issue. But I'll be looking forward to Floyd's next outing, and hopefully it'll steer clear of such controversial subjects - unless they're ones that haven't been so heavily mined or exploited.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Crime Fiction of Epic Proportions,
By
This review is from: The Mongoose Deception (CJ Floyd Mystery Series) (Hardcover)
Billed as the seventh mystery in the CJ Floyd series, The Mongoose Deception reveals itself to be more of a crime novel or conspiracy thriller than a traditional whodunit. Floyd doesn't make his first appearance until page seventy-seven, by which time the reader has become quite intimate with Louisiana delinquent Antoine Ducane and a slew of 1963-vintage mafia figures from around the country who are busy executing a conspiracy to assassinate JFK.
Floyd, who earns his living through the unlikely combination of bail bondsman services and antiques dealing, gets pulled into these decades-old events through his antiques partner and former mafia kingpin, Mario Santoni, who fears that he's being served up by his mafia brethren as a fall-guy for the assassination. The mafia guys, some of whom are retired octogenarians yet still retain their violent tendencies, are running scared now that the long-interred body of patsy Antoine Ducane has been unearthed from a Colorado tunnel. In addition to juggling a large cast of mafia dons, hit men, and other shadowy figures (including an enigmatic JFK conspiracy investigator), Robert Greer ambitiously layers in subplots involving Ducane's mother and former girlfriend as well as an earnest young basketball star and his defense lawyer mom. Greer writes well and succeeds in constructing an intersecting plot of epic proportions, but I found myself bogged down by minutia and dialogue that often failed to advance the story. The multitude of mafia guys also tended to blur together, as many were given only bit parts and few were bestowed with distinguishing character traits. I also felt as if the novel lacked a compelling central character; neither Floyd nor any of his cohorts were given enough stage time to forge a strong bond with me. Robert Greer possesses talent and an interesting protagonist. In my view, future CJ Floyd offerings would benefit from a more focused, Floyd-centric structure. -Kevin Joseph (as reviewed for TCM Reviews)
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