Readers who devoured Brandt Dodson’s four Colton Parker Mysteries will eagerly welcome this new novel from the suspense writer fans are comparing to Robert Parker, author of the megaselling Spenser series. This provocative novel centers on police officer Ron Ortega, a cop caught in the His wife and new baby want him home. His superiors—and his own naked ambition—want him in Miami. But when he infiltrates one of the city’s most vicious gangs, someone—or some ones want him dead. And they’ll stop at nothing to achieve their goal. In a test of his faith, he must decide if he will succumb to the challenges and the temptations that surround him or live the life he’s always proclaimed. Or for that matter, whether he’ll live at all. “Brandt Dodson’s writing combines two of the best traditions of the private eye a clean, laconic style and plotting based on believable human emotions and reactions.” —Terence Faherty, author of Kill Me Again
Brandt was born and raised on the west side of Indianapolis and comes from a long line of police officers. He was formerly employed by the Indianapolis Field Office of the FBI before serving as a Lt. in the United States Naval Reserve.
He is a graduate of Ben Davis High School and Indiana Central University (now known as the University of Indianapolis) and received his doctorate in Chicago, Illinois.
Brandt is the creator of the Indianapolis-based Colton Parker series, the Chicago-based Sons of Jude series, as well as several short stories and stand-alone novels. He has had his play adapted by a dinner theatre and it opened in March of 2013.
Brandt lives in southern Indiana where he is at work on his next novel.
This was my first read from Brandt Dodson, but I was highly impressed by how this author handled a novel about gangs, warlords, and the tremendous violence that is often associated with the underworld---all without once taking the Lord's name in vain or using other profanity. Dodson used his own Christian beliefs to demonstrate how an undercover policeman made choices between succumbing to temptation or living up to the life he has always proclaimed.
Interesting, suspenseful, this book was a good read. But, like other Dodson books I've read, there is very much "gray area" here. Are the bad guys really bad? Are the good guys really good? What is bad and good? Sometimes I just walk away a little unsure.