{"id":5312,"date":"2016-02-23T07:09:46","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T12:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5312"},"modified":"2017-01-29T11:39:09","modified_gmt":"2017-01-29T16:39:09","slug":"the-drifter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5312","title":{"rendered":"****The Drifter"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"wild

(photo: numb photo, creative commons license)<\/p><\/div>\n

By Nicholas Petrie, narrated by Stephen Mendel <\/a>\u2013 This exciting debut thriller pits U.S. Marine lieutenant and veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars Peter Ash against a mysterious conspiracy involving psychologically damaged vets, some serious explosives, and $400,000 in cash. Ash has post-traumatic stress, a \u201cwhite static\u201d that rises up whenever he\u2019s indoors too long. This extreme claustrophobia promises to be more than an inconvenience with winter coming on in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the story is set.<\/p>\n

When Ash hears of the suicide of his former comrade Big Jimmie Johnson, guilt motivates him to try to make it up to his widow Dinah and her two young sons. He invents a Marine Corps program that supports families by doing free home repairs and sets to work first on the Johnson family\u2019s dilapidated porch. But he can\u2019t rebuild the porch supports until he does something about the huge, vicious, and rank-smelling dog that\u2019s taken up residence underneath it.<\/p>\n

Once the dog is secure, he finds another surprise: a Samsonite suitcase filled with money and four packs of explosives. Dinah says she knows nothing about the money, but someone does, because the house was recently broken into and is still being watched by a man driving a big black SUV.<\/p>\n

Ash wants to protect Dinah and the boys, but he also wants to get to the bottom of Johnson\u2019s death. At first he buys the police story that his former sergeant was a suicide, but the more he finds out about Jimmie\u2019s recent actions, the more he suspects something else was in play. Although what Jimmie might have gotten himself involved in\u2014either as a participant or a sleuth\u2014is unclear, it must be serious, or people wouldn\u2019t have started trying to kill Ash too.<\/p>\n

Rehabilitating the wild dog Mingus, author Petrie has said, was Ash\u2019s \u201cfirst useful act.\u201d Certainly it has powerful parallels to Ash\u2019s own need to learn how to live with people and civilization again.<\/p>\n

Petrie went a little overboard in describing the construction the bad guys\u2019 bomb. I was prepared to accept that the bomb-maker\u2014after all, his nickname was \u201cBoomer\u201d\u2014knew what he was doing. But most of the descriptions of damage done, whether to people, property, vehicles, or psyches, was just right. I also appreciated that Ash\u2019s \u201ceveryday\u201d home repair skills were put to new and creative purposes. They make Ash a down-to-earth hero readers can easily identify with and get behind.<\/p>\n

Television and movie actor Stephen Mendel\u2014who seems to make a specialty of narrating the thriller genre\u2014does a nice job in the book\u2019s audio version. The characters\u2019 voices are believable\u2014regardless of race or social class\u2014and easy to distinguish, and the women and children are realistic. With his portrayal of Peter Ash, Mendel has made his own contribution to the creation of a likeable protagonist.<\/p>\n

A longer version of this review appeared on the Crime Fiction Lover website<\/a>.
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