Before the Rain: A Hicks and Hauser Crime Thriller

by Jack Getze

A Special Operations “fixer” for Homeland Security, U.S. Marine General Ray Hauser, teams up with Air Force Special Agent Sunny Hicks to recover a stolen GAU-8, the Gatling-gun like nose cannon of the military’s most destructive gunship, the A-10 Warthog. The weapon fires three thousand rounds a minute, each round’s explosive power equal to a stick of dynamite. Attached to a flatbed trailer, parked near Los Angeles traffic at rush hour, three thousand people could die within police response time.

Ray has another, more personal incentive to find those who stole the horrific weapon. His wife, Alissa, went missing years ago investigating a similar theft inside the same Arizona desert. If he can solve the GAU-8 case, there’s a chance he can discover what happened to his presumably dead wife, even catch her killers.

But that stolen Gatling-gun-like cannon also holds special attraction for Jessie Maris, unhappy wife of the weapon’s chief thief, Nolan Maris, a career criminal who plans to sell the GAU-8 for half a million. Jessie has been abused all her life, especially by the judge in a Family Court case many years ago. When her husband Nolan keeps her in the dark about his plans, then physically beats her, Jessie goes on a rampage that leads her and the GAU-8 to an old abuser and a crowd of innocents.

Can Hicks and Hauser stop her? U.S. Special Operations never dealt with a battered, over-the-edge woman like Jessie before.

334 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 18, 2024

About the author

Former newsman Jack Getze's screwball mysteries -- BIG NUMBERS, BIG MONEY, BIG MOJO, and BIG SHOES -- were published by Down and Out Books, as was a thriller, THE BLACK KACHINA, and a new family suspense novel, MAKING HEARTS. His short stories have appeared online at A Twist of Noir, Beat to a Pulp, The Big Adios, and several anthologies.
Series:
* Austin Carr Mystery