Hot Start

by David Freed

The next fast-paced installment in the Cordell Logan series, Hot Start is an adrenaline-fueled, action-packed thrill ride.

One sweltering summer night, an international big-game hunter and his beautiful wife are shot dead—at long range—while swimming naked at their seaside estate in Rancho Bonita, California. The police are convinced the perpetrator is an outspoken animal-rights activist—who happens to have both military training and a criminal record. The evidence seems overwhelming. But then rumors begin to surface that there may be more than one person with the means and motive for murder.

The last thing Cordell Logan wants is to get involved in another police investigation. But he and the suspect have mutual friends, and Logan realizes he alone may be the only one able to discover what really happened. At first reluctant, he soon finds himself neck-deep in a confounding conspiracy involving a congressman with close ties to the White House and a ruthless Czech crime boss who will stop at nothing to protect his illicit operations. Finding the truth will take Logan to places he never expected—and expose him to dangers he may not survive.

Genres: Thriller

304 pages, Paperback

Published November 19, 2024

About the author

David was born on an Air Force base in the Deep South, grew up the son of a cop along the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, and decided to give writing a shot soon after realizing that his grade point average would never get him into medical school. As an investigative journalist, most notably with the Los Angeles Times, he chronicled affairs of state, all manner of catastrophes, and the activities of the US military, including Operation Desert Storm. He spent myriad hours hunting for smoking guns in dusty archives, meeting confidential sources in bars and parking garages, and digging through trash cans long after midnight. Along the way, he shared in a Pulitzer Prize and won a few other shiny awards that occupy a box in his attic. He later became a Hollywood screenwriter paid to pen mostly action movies that were rarely produced, and, later still, an asset working with the U.S. intelligence community. David has been a licensed pilot for more than 30 years. He is a contributing editor at Air & Space Smithsonian magazine, a special assistant professor of journalism at Colorado State University, and teaches creative writing at Harvard's Extension School.

Reviews

[Jackie Martello · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring and uninteresting. Pontificating and pedantic. Repetitive. Politically correct. Anticlimactic. The characters in this series have devolved and become completely unlikable, stereotypical and over the top ridiculous- especially the Jewish landlord. The Buddhism lecturing is insufferable at this point. The first couple of books in this series were pretty good, but the stories have steeply declined. I listened to the 2nd half of the audiobook at 1.8x speed or I would’ve had to quit. There’s too much good out there to waste a day or two on this below average effort. 1.5 stars rounded up.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spectacular. 5 stars. Always on the edge of my seat