Book description
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.... 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. Richard Thompson is a former civil engineer and
construction manager who traded his hard hat for a laptop and now writes
full time. His first novel, Fiddle Game, was short-listed for a Debut
Dagger award, and Frag Box was a finalist for the 2010 Minnesota Book
Award. He is also the author of a standalone historical mystery, Big
Wheat. He lives in Minnesota with his wife of 45 years and two neurotic
cats.
