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“Tough, true, well–written, and memorable as Hell. Dray and Tim Rackley are uniquely believable and sympathetic heroes.” From Publishers Weekly U.S. Marshal Tim Rackley, nicknamed "Troubleshooter" because he's usually in trouble and he shoots a lot of people, is back on the job after breaking up a mind-control cult in his second Hurwitz outing, The Program . Biker gang the Laughing Sinners kills a couple of Rackley's friends while busting them out of U.S. marshall custody, then go on a rampage and massacre 37 of their rivals in preparation for a drug deal involving a powerful new form of liquid heroin called "Allah's Tears." Readers will feel a lurch of unease early on when informed that Rackley's deputy sheriff wife, Dray, is eight month's pregnant. Rackley is still suffering from the loss (in The Kill Clause ) of his daughter, Ginny, so when Dray tangles with the gang he comes close to losing it and screwing up the case. Hurwitz is a rock-solid writer, researcher and plotter, and readers will find him in top form putting Rackley through his procedural paces as he slowly closes in on and shuts down the spectacularly evil Laughing Sinners. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Gregg Hurwitz is the critically acclaimed, internationally bestselling author of Orphan X , You're Next , and The Program , among others. His books have been nominated for numerous awards, short-listed for best novel of the year by International Thriller Writers, nominated for CWA's Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, chosen as feature selections for all four major literary book clubs, honored as Book Sense picks, and translated into twenty languages. In addition to writing novels, Hurwitz also writes comics for DC and was a consulting producer on ABC's television series V . He holds a BA in English and psychology from Harvard and a master's degree from Trinity College, Oxford. He lives in Los Angeles. Erik Steele is a professional actor living in New York City, where he has worked both on and off Broadway and in film. He has toured with the prestigious Acting Company, performing Shakespeare and Sheridan in theaters from Atlanta to Anchorage. He holds an MFA in acting from New York University and a BA from Vassar College. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Troubleshooter By Gregg Hurwitz HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Copyright © 2006 Gregg HurwitzAll right reserved. ISBN: 0060731451 Chapter One Den Laurey strained against the cuffs so his shoulders bulged under his jailhouse blues, sending ripples through the FTW tattooed above his collarbone. An amused smile, all gums at the corners, rode high on his face. In an additional security measure, the chain of his leg restraint had been knotted, narrowing the space between his ankles. Kaner sat beside him on the transport's bench seat, stooped so his head wouldn't strike the roof during freeway turbulence. Because he was too broad for his wrists to meet behind his back, Kaner's arms were secured with two sets of handcuffs linked together. A onetime sparring partner to Tyson -- in prison -- he'd snapped more than one set of cuff chains, so a second pair of restraints secured him at the forearms. Beneath a wild man's spray of black hair, a 22 tat on the back of his neck advertised his previous stint in the pen. Kaner had a broad, coarse face and prominent earlobes, fleshy tags that lay dimpled against his skull. Den, president of the Laughing Sinners nomad chapter, and Kaner, the biker gang's national enforcer, were being driven under heavy guard directly from sentencing to San Bernardino County Jail, where they'd await Con Air transport to a federal penitentiary. They'd been convicted of the torture-killing of three members of the Cholos, in retaliation for the shooting of a Sinner. Den, renowned for his knife skills, had severed the victims' heads with surgical precision and set them in their laps. For good measure he'd removed their hearts and left them on the Cholos' clubhouse doorstep. The gesture marked another leap in the escalation between the Sinners and Cholos, a broad-ranging turf war for control over key arteries of Southern California's drug trafficking network. Deputy U.S. Marshal Hank Mancone, a fixture behind the wheel of the transport van, was the only nonprisoner in the three-vehicle convoy not a member of the Service's Arrest Response Team. Frankie Palton in the passenger's seat, the four deputy marshals in the armored Suburban behind them, and the two in the advance vehicle five miles up the road were all part of the district's ART squad, called in for tactical strikes and high-risk transports. Mancone was a deputy as well, but given his retirement age and contentment in grousing about his narrow bailiwick, he had little interest in the ARTists aside from giving them the occasional lift. Palton pivoted in his seat, meeting Den's shit-eating grin through the steel security screen. "Nice tats." "You can take our clothes, but you can't take our colors." "What's 'FTW' stand for?" "Fuck the World." "We keep having these Hallmark moments, I might get dewy-eyed." The radio crackled in from the chase car. Jim Denley -- Palton's partner: "Eyes up on your right. We got some more bikers coming on." Palton looked in the sideview. Two bikers rattled past, double-parking, their mamas reclining against sissy bars and offering the deputies languorous waves. Another three bikers zipped by on the right, flying colors, filthy club logos flapping on the backs of their leather jackets. Mancone's grip on the steering wheel eased once the whine of the Harleys faded. "What's with all the bikers?" "Relax, lawman," Den said. "It's the season. You got your Love Ride in Glendale, the Long Beach Swap, San Dog Run, Left Coast Rally in Truckee, Big Bear Ride, Mid-State Holiday Hog Run in Paso Robles, Squaw Rock Run, Desert Whirlybird Meet." His smirk bounced into sight in the rearview mirror. "All the wannabes on the move." Kaner's three-pack-a-day voice emerged from the tangle of hair down over his face. "I'll still take it over you citizens driving around in your cages." "Hear that, Mancone?" Palton said. "We got nothing to worry about. Just wannabes. And to think I was carrying this gun for no good reason." Den said, "You want to get your shorts twisted over some weekend warriors, be my guest." From the chase car: "Shit. Greaseball alert number two." Two streams of bikers throttled by on either side of the van, their top rockers -- the strips of stitched leather cresting the jackets' logos -- announcing them as Cholos. Their bottom rockers showed their mother-chapter affiliation: PALMDALE. A few minutes later, a beefy biker rolled past and did a double take at the prisoners. When he lingered to gloat and flip them a middle finger, Palton raised the stock of his MP5 into view. The Cholo opened the throttle, ponytail flicking, and his bottom rocker came visible: NOMAD. Den laughed, scratching his cheek with a swipe of his shoulder. "Good ol' Meat Marquez. Now that his nomad buddies met their untimely demise, poor spic's gotta ride all by his lonesome." They came around a bend in the 10 and were greeted by hundreds of brake lights. As Mancone cursed and slowed to a crawl, Palton got the advance car on the air. "What's with the traffic?" "What traffic? We sailed through." "Accident?" "Probably, but stay alert. We'll exit and wait." Once traffic ground to a standstill, a biker wearing a duster pulled a few lengths ahead of them, stopping where the space between idling cars narrowed. He was low in the seat, pint-size but exuding attitude. He turned and looked back, the van reflected in the silver blade of the helmet's faceplate. The distinctive Indian logo identified the motorcycle frame's maker, but the rest of the sleek bike seemed to be custom-built. It sported a leather saddlebag on the left side, but its mate was missing on the right. The biker revved the engine, giving voice to 1,200 cubic centimeters of rage. Jim's voice came through the radio again, and Palton replied, "Yeah, we got him. Looks to be unaffiliated -- he's not flying colors." A Harley white-lined through the traffic jam, easing up past the right side of the Suburban and van. The helmeted rider paused a few feet back from the other biker, across the lane, idling. Hands tensing around his weapon, Palton checked the side mirror. Jim had the stock of his MP5 against his shoulder, ready to be raised. Something was lying on the ground under the Suburban at the front left tire. Palton clicked the rear view controls, centering the object in the mirror. Continues... Excerpted from Troubleshooter by Gregg Hurwitz Copyright © 2006 by Gregg Hurwitz. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Read more
Features & Highlights
- The series that started it all!
- The maestro of pulse-pounding suspense delivers an explosive new white-knuckle thriller featuring deputy U.S. Marshal Tim Rackley -- a lawman driven by honor, morality, and a thirst for justice. The leader of one of the country's most violent biker gangs, Den Laurey should have been behind bars. But thanks to a daring escape on an L.A. freeway, several deputy marshals are dead and Laurey is riding free. Rackley, back on the Service's warrant squad, is in hot pursuit of the outlaw and his ruthless gang -- with a media whirlwind and the entire Los Angeles law-enforcement community driving him.
- Just when Laurey is within his grasp, circumstances force Rackley to let him go -- with devastating results. A few miles up the road, a sheriff's deputy is attacked: Tim's pregnant wife, Dray. Driven by guilt, Tim vows to hunt Laurey down -- a search that will lead him into a dark world of deception and lies, a world of criminals and undercover cops, drugs and mutilation. And the key to the violent puzzle lies in the discarded corpses of women -- women for whom Tim must seek justice when no one else will. With the stakes rising, Tim must unravel a horrifying secret and confront a deadly terror that reaches from the back alleys of Mexico to the poppy fields of Afghanistan ... and threatens to explode on the dark streets of L.A.
