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Troubleshooter: A Novel (Tim Rackley Novels)

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After the great work he did breaking up the mind controlling cult in THE PROGRAM, deputy U. S. Marshall Tim Rackley is once again back on the job. This time around he's assigned as head of the task force formed to track down Den Laurey, leader of the violent biker gang the Laughing Sinners, who escapes custody while being transported to San Bernardino County Jail, leaving two U. S. Marshals dead. Laurey is known for his knife skills and was convicted of torture killing of three rival gang members in retaliation for the shooting of a Sinner. He's armed and dangerous, but not alone. With him is Lance Kaner, the gang's enforcer, and together the two are a lethal combination. With Bear and Guerrera again at his side, Rackley works day and night trying to find leads. At one point it seems as if he's got a good chance of apprehending them, but a situation arises that leaves him no choice but let them go, which results in the shooting of a sheriff's deputy not far from the scene. The wounded deputy turns out to be his wife Drey, who also happens to be eight months pregnant, which results in feelings of guilt and frustration. While still trying to deal with the loss of his daughter Ginny, who was murdered years ago, he must put his personal feelings aside and put an end to the violence, especially after the gang goes on a violent rampage in preparation for a drug deal of a new string of heroin which leads the marshals from Mexico to Afghanistan.

TROUBLESHOOTER is a great addition to the Rackley series! It's filled with so much action and suspense you just can't turn the pages fast enough. Gregg Hurwitz is one of my favorite authors, and in my opinion one of today's greatest suspense writers. He's got a style all his own and has never disappointed me yet, so if you haven't already discovered this great author I recommend you do so today!

If the year 2005 becomes known as "The Year of Hurwitz," TROUBLESHOOTER will be the reason why. Greg Hurwitz has written a number of fine books with nary a miss since THE TOWER, his debut novel. He began a new upward trajectory, however, with THE KILL CLAUSE, the first of his novels to feature U.S. Marshal Tim Rackley, and 2004's THE PROGRAM continued this trend. But neither will prepare you for the masterpiece that is TROUBLESHOOTER.

Any thriller, at its most basic level, needs a good, believable bogeyman that will scare the heck out of the reader. TROUBLESHOOTER has a whole group of them --- a biker gang known as the Laughing Sinners. The Sinners seem to run the streets of southern California with impunity, due to a combination of street smarts, mind-numbing violence, and the legal machinations of a cunning attorney. The book begins with the guarded transport of Den Laurey and Kaner, two members of the Sinners' nomad chapter --- so called because they have no fixed territory or home --- following their arrest for murder. Their brutal and daring escape leads to the formation of a task force charged with recapturing them, with whatever force it takes, and bringing the Sinners down.

Rackley, who is heading up the task force, almost recaptures Laurey but is outmanned and outgunned --- a situation that results in tragic personal consequences for Rackley mere minutes later when his pregnant wife Dray, herself a sheriff's deputy, is attacked and left for dead in the bikers' wake. Rackley must detach his personal grief and desire for revenge from his duties as task force director, even as these elements merge and intersect as the U.S. Marshal's Office and the Sinners play a continuous game of cat-and-mouse for the highest possible stakes. As the task force methodically pursues the gang, it learns that the activities of the Sinners have consequences that will affect not only southern California but also national security.

As always, Hurwitz's research is first-rate; combined with his considerable narrative talents, TROUBLESHOOTER gives the reader an over-the-shoulder view of a counterculture within a counterculture. The Sinners, self-styled "one-percenters" --- their name based upon the truism that 99 percent of bikers are law-abiding citizens --- are not merely societal nonconformists following a creed of "live and let live," but rather are outlaws at war with society, feeding off of it even as they provide vices such as sex and drugs so desired by some. The relationship, subtly but graphically demonstrated here, is more parasitic than symbiotic.

Hurwitz wisely refuses to blur the lines here, choosing instead to paint a clear picture of law enforcement and evil at their respective best and worst while providing a breakneck narrative that races to a conclusion --- two of them, actually --- that will satisfy everyone, on all counts. Ultimately, TROUBLESHOOTER is an undeniable winner.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

At a little over 300 pages, this book was a fast read. There are a few things that make you have to stretch your imagination. First, Rackley's team is too good. It becomes invincible with the help from Pete Krindon.

Dray kind of grates on your nerves.

Gritty, greasy, grimy. Troubleshooter by Gregg Hurwitz is all that and more.

Nomad bikers, Den Laurey and Lance Kaner, have just been liberated from custody while being transported to federal prison, U.S. marshals' lie dead on an LA freeway and the manhunt for the two brutal killers is on.

The U.S. Marshal's Service has one man that can do the job, Tim Rackley, whose special investigative style and willingness to use all means at his disposal, are called in by the Marshal's Service with the complicity of the Mayor of Los Angeles. His mission: get Laury and Kaner into custody--or kill them. Either is okay. Do it and do it now.

The hunt for the two biker nomads, members of a deadly group known as the Laughing Sinners, takes you through the seedy underbelly of the outlaw biker world. Harleys roar, dust and bullets fly as Rackley and his team, peel away the defenses of the Sinners and take the club's most notorious members down one at a time.

Dray Rackley, Tim's wife, and LA County Sheriff's deputy, is enmeshed into the hunt when she performs what she thinks is a routine stop of a biker along a desolate highway. Wrong. She's stopped Laurey, and is soon surrounded by Kaner and three other Sinner nomads; the resulting assault puts Dray in the hospital where her life hangs in the balance.

As the investigation widens, and the stakes get higher, Rackley and the team uncover the real motivation for Laurey's liberation. The Sinners have made a pact with a group of Afghan extremists to smuggle millions in high-potency heroin to finance their future operations and nefarious activities sure to be trouble in America's future.

As with any good crime thriller there is a well-played inter-service rivalry between the Marshal's Service and the FBI. The FBI, as is typical, takes the brunt of the abuse in the initial chapters, but finally sees the errors of working the big picture instead of working the finer elements of the investigation.

Troubleshooter is a great thriller. Plenty of guns, raids, dogs and drugs. You won't be disappointed.

Federal marshal Tim Rackley is back in his third adventure by Gregg Hurwitz. This time the lawman faces a deadly gang of bikers whose agenda includes the distribution of Allah's Tears, a deadly new drug that is funding terrorists.

Rackley has some personal crises too, as is deputy wife, Dray, is seriously wounded by the biker's leader, Den Laurey. Aided by his faithful partner, Bear, and somewhat hindered at first by the good old FBI, Rackley begins a long, arduous search to find this killer biker gang before the drug is released. This includes the murders of overweight Mexican women whose bodies are being used as vessels to transport the drug.

Hurwitz's narrative is muscular and gripping; there's lots of action and a real villainess in defense attorney Dana Lake, who has no qualms in making millions by representing the biker gang's colorful and murderous members.

For fast paced action and gripping narrative, Hurwitz is establishing himself as one of those to take note of.

The third book in this series with Tim Rackley doesn't disappoint. The action is non stop and Hurwitz continues to do really solid research. If you enjoyed The Kill Clause and The Program, you will definitely like this book.

Trouble Shooter by Gregg Hurwitz is the book for you if you want a thriller that grabs you on the first page and continues till the end. This book is a page turner. The story line and characters of wicked bikers is a welcome change. This author gets better with each book but this one will be hard to surpass.

I began reading Hurwitz with the first in the Tim Rackley series and really enjoyed that book. Then I went back and tried to read The Tower and The Program and couldn't get into them. Troubleshooter is a great novel and a very fast read.

Rackley and his wife Dray are at it again, taking on some really bad guys and trying to dispense justice. Rackley and the US Marshals team up with the FBI to bring down an outlaw biker gang. Rackley and his sheriff deputy's wife Dray are in the middle of things, pursuing the bad guys and fighting their own demons. These are some really mean and nasty dudes and you begin to wonder who will come out ahead. Non stop action and a very intriguing plot will keep you reading well into the night.

Another great effort by Gregg Hurwitz as he brings back his "troubleshooter" hero Tim Rackley. The writing is good and the action is fast as Rackley delves into the lives of some evil bikers (aka 1 percenters). Hurwitz always likes to know about what he writes, so he was lucky enough to go out and learn how to drive a Harley. What a guy. Keep up the good work.

Recommended.