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Frag Box

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

Herman Jackson never thought his past would catch up with him, least of all via a murdered Vietnam veteran named Charlie Victor. Jackson used to run a bookie operation in Detroit, but his bail bond business in St. Paul is much safer. And if Charlie Victor wasn't his best client, he was at least a steady one, paying his bonding fee out of a secret stash he called his frag box.

Then Charlie is beaten to death on a public street in broad daylight. Strangely, he leaves behind a will naming Jackson as his sole heir. Jackson wants justice for Charlie, who had become something of a friend. But with plenty of money problems of his own, he also wants the box of cash.

Unfortunately, Charlie's killers want it, too, and the race is on. Jackson will traverse the dark alleys of St. Paul's Railroad Island, the snowbound Minnesota Iron Range, and finally an abandoned tunnel under St. Paul. But every step reveals another layer of protection and another set of lies Jackson has told, including the ones he told himself....

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 31, 2009
      In Thompson’s compelling second mystery to feature St. Paul, Minn., bail bondsman Herman Jackson (after 2008’s The Fiddle Game
      ), Jackson investigates the murder of one of his more unusual repeat customers, soul-wounded Charlie Victor, a homeless Vietnam vet. Jackson, to whom Victor bequeathed a mysterious box, immediately receives visits from the FBI, an odd bully who wants to take over Jackson’s business and a band of heavily armed mercenaries of unknown origin. When the police appear to lose interest in Victor’s case, Jackson enlists the aid of comely Anne Packard, a fearless newspaper reporter. Jackson and Packard follow the scant clues to Victor’s past, hoping to solve the brutal killing, uncover a buried secret and separate the good guys, if there are any, from the bad. A dash of romance, plenty of action and an appealing, wise-cracking hero enhance this detective story with an old-fashioned noir flavor.

    • Kirkus

      September 15, 2009
      Herman Jackson, bail bondsman with a heart of mush (Fiddle Game, 2008), goes the extra mile for an ill-used Vietnam vet.

      One look at Charlie Victor, and most people think of hard luck personified:"Yesterday, elsewhere, and too bad." Consider his war, for instance. Vietnam, no picnic for anyone, was through no fault of Charlie's an extended nightmare from which he never came close to awaking. So when Herman, the doyen of St. Paul bail bondsmen, learns that Charlie's end has been both sudden and remarkably brutal, he's not surprised. But not detached either. After all, Charlie, for whom brushes with ill-disposed cops have long been routine, has been a bread-and-butter client and something more; Herman was drawn to the vet, or at least to the man he sensed had once been. As he launches his investigation into that earlier incarnation, Herman discovers it was far more complicated than he ever imagined. To begin with, Charlie's murder is not the mindless act of violence described by the police. It's been carefully calculated, and its roots go astonishingly deep. The fact is that Charlie mattered enough for powerful people to hate him bitterly.

      Well-constructed and deftly character-driven, with a nice little love story for leavening.

      (COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

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  • English

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