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Detective Doyle Carrick #3
Dust Up
In this outstanding international thriller by Jon McGoran, Detective Doyle Carrick is awakened in the middle of the night by frantic banging on his front door, followed by gunfire. Ron Hartwell, a complete stranger, is dying on his doorstep.
A halfhearted investigation labels the murder a domestic dispute, with Miriam, Ron's widow, the sole suspect. Doyle discovers the Hartwells both worked for a big biotech company and suspects something else is going on, but it's not his case. Then Miriam tracks him down and tells him her story.
Miriam and Ron had been working in Haiti and visiting her friend, Regi Baudet, the deputy health minister, when they stumbled upon a corporate cover-up of tainted food aid that sickened an entire village - and was 100 percent fatal. They were coming to Doyle to blow the whistle. Before Miriam can say more, they are attacked by gunmen, and she flees then disappears.
Doyle tracks her to Haiti, a country on the brink of political chaos. Working with Miriam and Regi, he must untangle a web of deceit and unconscionable corporate greed in order to stop an epidemic of even greater evil before it is released onto an unsuspecting world.
A halfhearted investigation labels the murder a domestic dispute, with Miriam, Ron's widow, the sole suspect. Doyle discovers the Hartwells both worked for a big biotech company and suspects something else is going on, but it's not his case. Then Miriam tracks him down and tells him her story.
Miriam and Ron had been working in Haiti and visiting her friend, Regi Baudet, the deputy health minister, when they stumbled upon a corporate cover-up of tainted food aid that sickened an entire village - and was 100 percent fatal. They were coming to Doyle to blow the whistle. Before Miriam can say more, they are attacked by gunmen, and she flees then disappears.
Doyle tracks her to Haiti, a country on the brink of political chaos. Working with Miriam and Regi, he must untangle a web of deceit and unconscionable corporate greed in order to stop an epidemic of even greater evil before it is released onto an unsuspecting world.
- GenresThriller
MP3 CD
First published April 19, 2016
2 people are currently reading
501 people want to read
About the author
Jon McGoran
26 books186 followersJon McGoran is the author of ten novels, including Spliced, Splintered and Spiked, a trilogy of near-future YA science fiction thrillers from Holiday House Books.Spliced was named to the ALA’s Library Information Technology Association (LITA) inaugural 2018 LITA Excellence in Children’s and Young Adult Science Fiction Notable Lists and was also named one of the American Bookseller’s Association’s 2017 ABC Best Books for Young Readers. The sequel, Splintered, comes out May 2019. His other books include the acclaimed ecological thrillers Drift, Deadout, and Dust Up, from Tor/Forge Books, and The Dead Ring, based on the hit TV show, The Blacklist. Writing as D. H. Dublin, he is the author of the forensic thrillers Body Trace, Blood Poison and Freezer Burn, from Penguin Books. His short fiction includes stories in the recent anthologies Hardboiled Horror and Joe Ledger: Unstoppable, as well as the novella “After Effects,” from Amazon StoryFront; Bad Debt, which received an honorable mention in Best American Mystery Stories 2014; and stories in a variety of other anthologies. He is a founding member of the Philadelphia Liars Club, a group of published authors dedicated to writers helping writers. When not writing novels and short fiction, McGoran works as a freelance writer and developmental editor and co-host of the writing podcast The Liars Club Oddcast. Find him on Twitter at @JonMcGoran, facebook.com/jonmcgoran/ or at www.jonmcgoran.com. Or visit www.spliced.world and splice yourself!
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
March 24, 2016
I hesitated between giving this four or five starts because there are aspects of this book I REALLY like. Jon McGoran has improved leaps and bounds since the first Doyle Carrick novel DRIFT and not that many people in the business write characters that are livelier and more human than him. He's a very detail-oriented writer who always has the perfect observation or dialogue line to make dialogue pop off the page.The first 120 pages of DUST UP are as good if not better than anything I've read this year.
Than a weird thing happened.
It's not that uncommon in thrillers and it's not inherently bad, but it was just very apparent because of the quality of McGoran's character: the complex and sprawling plot started taking so much place that the endearing qualities of McGoran's characters faded a little bit as they are too busy trying to survive a disaster to do anything else.
The plot itself is stellar. It is dramatic and cathartic as Walt Frazier would say and Jon McGoran compensates the incredible nature of his thriller with a killer sense of humor that sometimes neighbors the Coen brothers (his rivalry with his colleague Mike Warren is uproarious). It's still a very cerebral kind of thriller and you need to be interested in eco-activism a little bit to care (which I am, but only a little), but it's tightly wrapped and tremendously executed. If you're into sprawling international thrillers, McGoran is pretty much the best on the market right now.
Than a weird thing happened.
It's not that uncommon in thrillers and it's not inherently bad, but it was just very apparent because of the quality of McGoran's character: the complex and sprawling plot started taking so much place that the endearing qualities of McGoran's characters faded a little bit as they are too busy trying to survive a disaster to do anything else.
The plot itself is stellar. It is dramatic and cathartic as Walt Frazier would say and Jon McGoran compensates the incredible nature of his thriller with a killer sense of humor that sometimes neighbors the Coen brothers (his rivalry with his colleague Mike Warren is uproarious). It's still a very cerebral kind of thriller and you need to be interested in eco-activism a little bit to care (which I am, but only a little), but it's tightly wrapped and tremendously executed. If you're into sprawling international thrillers, McGoran is pretty much the best on the market right now.
Want to Read
July 23, 2015
Me. Right now.
Am I really the first person to leave a note on this book? GOOD. I LOVE ME SOME JON MCGORAN AND THIS BOOK IS GOING TO BE AMAZING.
March 9, 2016
This new novel from Jon McGoran opens with a bang - - literally. Actually, several of them. The first few are from the pounding on the front door of a house, the next few are from gunshots, which quickly put an end to the door-pounding.
The door is that of Detective Doyle Carrick and Nola, his girlfriend. And the man shot to death is, when Doyle Carrick opens the door and sees the body lying there, that of a complete stranger. As Doyle sees the dead man, he also sees a car speeding away from the scene, and the horrified, terrified face of a woman behind the wheel.
The case is assigned to Mike Warren, a detective with Doyle’s unit in the Philadephia P.D., whose [probably sole] insight in the case is to identify the dead man from ID in his wallet: Ronald Hartwell. It ultimately appears that the man’s wife, Miriam Hartwell, worked with him at a huge biotech company. Warren is certain that the wife is the chief suspect, while Doyle tries to figure out why it was his house to which they had come, suspicious that something else was going on, that perhaps they were acting as whistleblowers, Doyle having earned a reputation in taking down large biotech companies in the past.
When Doyle finally gets to meet with Miriam, the story she tells him is a complex one which, to quote the publisher, “uncovers a web of deceit, intrigue and mass murder, with giant biotech corporations [are] working to topple the Haitian government.” Doyle feels compelled to follow up Miriam’s story, with “the stubbornness that I usually allowed to ruin my life and my career.” And he comes close to doing exactly that again. What ensues is a tale of environmental activism, GMOs and hybrid crops, genetically modified seeds and biotech products, with Ebola-like diseases at the heart of the conspiracy.
My husband, Ted, and I loved the author’s first two books in the series, “Drift” and “Deadout,” and this one doesn’t disappoint. In the early pages, there are vivid descriptions of Philadelphia and its environs. The writing is compelling, and the book a page-turner (although I would have been the last person to expect that from a novel filled with material so foreign to me). Mr. McGoran gives the reader is very satisfying ending. And things come full circle as the final page of this outstanding novel describes a pounding on Carrick’s front door, this time not from a man about to be shot to death.
The door is that of Detective Doyle Carrick and Nola, his girlfriend. And the man shot to death is, when Doyle Carrick opens the door and sees the body lying there, that of a complete stranger. As Doyle sees the dead man, he also sees a car speeding away from the scene, and the horrified, terrified face of a woman behind the wheel.
The case is assigned to Mike Warren, a detective with Doyle’s unit in the Philadephia P.D., whose [probably sole] insight in the case is to identify the dead man from ID in his wallet: Ronald Hartwell. It ultimately appears that the man’s wife, Miriam Hartwell, worked with him at a huge biotech company. Warren is certain that the wife is the chief suspect, while Doyle tries to figure out why it was his house to which they had come, suspicious that something else was going on, that perhaps they were acting as whistleblowers, Doyle having earned a reputation in taking down large biotech companies in the past.
When Doyle finally gets to meet with Miriam, the story she tells him is a complex one which, to quote the publisher, “uncovers a web of deceit, intrigue and mass murder, with giant biotech corporations [are] working to topple the Haitian government.” Doyle feels compelled to follow up Miriam’s story, with “the stubbornness that I usually allowed to ruin my life and my career.” And he comes close to doing exactly that again. What ensues is a tale of environmental activism, GMOs and hybrid crops, genetically modified seeds and biotech products, with Ebola-like diseases at the heart of the conspiracy.
My husband, Ted, and I loved the author’s first two books in the series, “Drift” and “Deadout,” and this one doesn’t disappoint. In the early pages, there are vivid descriptions of Philadelphia and its environs. The writing is compelling, and the book a page-turner (although I would have been the last person to expect that from a novel filled with material so foreign to me). Mr. McGoran gives the reader is very satisfying ending. And things come full circle as the final page of this outstanding novel describes a pounding on Carrick’s front door, this time not from a man about to be shot to death.
May 23, 2016
Jon McGoran keeps getting better and better and “Dust Up” is proof positive. Philadelphia detective Doyle Carrick has battled eco threats before, but never on the international stage with so many lives at stake. What begins with a murder at his door step soon swells. In this latest thriller, McGoran takes the biotech and GMO threat to Haiti, a country on the brink of political chaos, fighting to hold onto their land and the large corporations trying to exploit them.
Carrick has a sarcastic wit that adds a bit of humor along the way, but he’s not one to let an injustice go without a fight. Well researched and action-packed, it’s a tense read, difficult to put down, and one that leaves you thinking about the food we eat. These are real world problems. The science McGoran writes about is real, as is the threat posed by greedy corporations. I can’t wait to read what Carrick's up to next.
Carrick has a sarcastic wit that adds a bit of humor along the way, but he’s not one to let an injustice go without a fight. Well researched and action-packed, it’s a tense read, difficult to put down, and one that leaves you thinking about the food we eat. These are real world problems. The science McGoran writes about is real, as is the threat posed by greedy corporations. I can’t wait to read what Carrick's up to next.
May 17, 2016
It took me just two days to read #3 in the Doyle Carrick series, which clearly means that it's another brisk and enjoyable outing. The "perils of GMO" niche that Jon McGoran has staked out remains fertile ground for thrillers. Here much of the action takes place in Haiti, which is a big plus for me because I've been interested in that nation's history for a long time. McGoran introduces new characters and sets out a new direction for Carrick should the series continue, which by all appearances it will. I hope Carrick goes mano a mano with the mogul Archie Pearce, who so far has been just a juicy tertiary character.
September 23, 2016
The first 100 pages of this incredibly fast-paced thriller are fantastic. Afterwards things began to get bogged down, but otherwise the plot and characters are great.
November 19, 2024
The weakest offering in the series, definitely. It's... staggering to see a thriller author who doesn't know how fingerprints work, really. The plot is dense with unexplained coincidences (how come the bad guys can always trace Grumpy Douchebag AKA Doyle Carrick? Miriam's arrest in Haiti - WTF?!), because McGoran didn't feel like putting even a bit of effort into putting it together. Funny thing - there's a character in the novel who's exactly the same way, and he's one of the baddies :D Done and done, not gonna go back to those.
March 17, 2016
McGoran really nails it with this, the third Doyle Carrick outing in Dust Up. If you haven’t read the first two I highly recommend it though this book stands firmly on its own.
The author is firmly in control like a bass player discretely directing the beat to a tune that forces you tap your foot and become intimately involved in its rhythm. You really don’t want to put it down and like a Crichton or a Clancy story you learn a little something that's going on in the world around you, that sometimes, you may not want to know.
McGoran hits his stride here and the character of Carrick, well, he’s a gem.
Doyle Carrick is THE 'every-man', whether it be someone in the family or member of an inner circle, we all know one; for his ilk the door is always open and the gathering a little better when he is a part of it. He's street smart and a smart ass (well, he is a Philly cop) and although his moral center may not be totally centered he is someone we can all relate to.
But it's the riveting narrative that carries this one. Intrigue and bio terrorism on a global scale. It grabs you right away.
Carrick started out in Philadelphia then moved on to Massachusetts and Marthas Vinyard, this time around he went international. Can’t wait to see where McGoran sets him up next.
The author is firmly in control like a bass player discretely directing the beat to a tune that forces you tap your foot and become intimately involved in its rhythm. You really don’t want to put it down and like a Crichton or a Clancy story you learn a little something that's going on in the world around you, that sometimes, you may not want to know.
McGoran hits his stride here and the character of Carrick, well, he’s a gem.
Doyle Carrick is THE 'every-man', whether it be someone in the family or member of an inner circle, we all know one; for his ilk the door is always open and the gathering a little better when he is a part of it. He's street smart and a smart ass (well, he is a Philly cop) and although his moral center may not be totally centered he is someone we can all relate to.
But it's the riveting narrative that carries this one. Intrigue and bio terrorism on a global scale. It grabs you right away.
Carrick started out in Philadelphia then moved on to Massachusetts and Marthas Vinyard, this time around he went international. Can’t wait to see where McGoran sets him up next.
July 5, 2016
I would not say I am the typical thriller reader but McGoran's modern twist, this time using an all-to-believable horror story about GMO terrorism, is just the thing I need to pick up the genre for some fun reading.
While this is the third in the adventures of Detective Doyle Carrick, the reader does not have to read the first two books (Drift, and Dead Out) to understand what's happening - although I do recommend it because they are great and you get a much better feel for the character development by going in order.
Much like the first two books, Dust Up's characters are strong and realistic, the setting is interesting and imaginable, the plot keeps you guessing until the reveal, and the science, at least to this mostly-layperson-perhaps-citizen-scientist, is on the money. The dialogue is really well done without very much of the "exposition" feel that usually annoys me in mysteries and thrillers.
The end of this story sets up a little more clearly than the first two that there will be a future in ecological espionage take-downs for Carrick - and I can't wait.
While this is the third in the adventures of Detective Doyle Carrick, the reader does not have to read the first two books (Drift, and Dead Out) to understand what's happening - although I do recommend it because they are great and you get a much better feel for the character development by going in order.
Much like the first two books, Dust Up's characters are strong and realistic, the setting is interesting and imaginable, the plot keeps you guessing until the reveal, and the science, at least to this mostly-layperson-perhaps-citizen-scientist, is on the money. The dialogue is really well done without very much of the "exposition" feel that usually annoys me in mysteries and thrillers.
The end of this story sets up a little more clearly than the first two that there will be a future in ecological espionage take-downs for Carrick - and I can't wait.
February 16, 2016
Jon McGoran has done it again with his new and exciting thriller! "Dust Up" continues the bio-terrifying journey that began with "Drift", continued with "Deadout" and now takes Doyle Carrick and the reader on an intense international journey. An exciting and explosive story that keeps the reader intrigued to the very end and continues to show how frightening food (and the nasty business of creating it) can really be! Jon takes Doyle and his delightful gang of characters on the best adventure yet. Settle in for this one because once you start reading, you won't be able to put it down!
May 24, 2016
I am a fan of the Doyle Carrick series and for good reason. The characters and plotting are detailed and engaging. It's such a great ride that it isn't until I'm nearing the end that I put the brakes on my reading speed so that so that I can get a little more time in this world that McGoran creates. Can't wait for the next one!
July 15, 2016
As with his other novels, McGoran's research for this book must have been exhaustive and it is clearly shown in his writing, but he manages to do so without creating a text that is dry or tedious to read. Up to date with trending global topics as well, the Carrick series continues to improve and I look forward to seeing the direction the fourth takes.
May 13, 2016
Fast paced, entertaining, and thought provoking.
August 6, 2018
Serious issues are tackled well in the clipped prose of Jon McGoran’s ecothriller Dust Up. Even technical stuff is doled out in a way I easily digested.
McGoran uses weakness in local law enforcement under the weight of money, power and ego as the frame of this story. The wrap-up that seals the frame is satisfying and done well.
McGoran also pulls this familiar topic into the story’s main setting of Haiti. Politics and large corporations play a hand in tainted food that devastated communities of people. Hard-core stuff in which McGoran uses his soft-hearted, untiring hero Detective Doyle Carrick to serve and protect while uncovering the vulnerability of people receiving the food.
Haiti as the setting makes so much sense because of its political vulnerability. Can Dust Up be a warning that a similar situation could possibly reach to my kitchen table?
I would have come away scared and depressed contemplating this if it wasn’t for McGoran’s identifiable character who reminds me that hope can be in the little Everyman. My favorite stories have this.
McGoran multitasks by educating, entertaining and poking the reader's conscious with his important themes. I’m glad books like this are still published today.
McGoran uses weakness in local law enforcement under the weight of money, power and ego as the frame of this story. The wrap-up that seals the frame is satisfying and done well.
McGoran also pulls this familiar topic into the story’s main setting of Haiti. Politics and large corporations play a hand in tainted food that devastated communities of people. Hard-core stuff in which McGoran uses his soft-hearted, untiring hero Detective Doyle Carrick to serve and protect while uncovering the vulnerability of people receiving the food.
Haiti as the setting makes so much sense because of its political vulnerability. Can Dust Up be a warning that a similar situation could possibly reach to my kitchen table?
I would have come away scared and depressed contemplating this if it wasn’t for McGoran’s identifiable character who reminds me that hope can be in the little Everyman. My favorite stories have this.
McGoran multitasks by educating, entertaining and poking the reader's conscious with his important themes. I’m glad books like this are still published today.
January 5, 2018
The blizzard here in NJ kept me indoors, so I was able to read most of this novel today. A great story very similar to works by James Lilliefors. Believable action, solid science, and enjoyable. My first Jon McGoran book, and I'm looking forward to more.
October 27, 2016
Very well written suspense with some good science mixed in to the story.
December 31, 2015
A bit plodding in the beginning but picks up nicely midway. The environmental theme is a neat twist.
May 7, 2016
Good beginning - lots of great pictures of Philadelphia. Bogged down but picked up at the end. Not as good as the first carrick books.
May 23, 2016
This is the interview:
https://mysterypeople.wordpress.com/2...
I've heard good things about this author so i sought him out for an interview and he agreed.
https://mysterypeople.wordpress.com/2...
I've heard good things about this author so i sought him out for an interview and he agreed.
December 30, 2016
Good shit! This book has it - murder, intrigue, tropical setting, and villains you can really hate. I love this series... can't wait to see where McGoran takes Doyle Carrick next!
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews