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Jeff Trask Crime Drama
Mob Rules: A Jeff Trask Crime Drama
Assistant United States Attorney Jeff Trask moves from Washington, D.C., to Kansas City, where he begins an investigation into an international drug ring smuggling the deadly combination of fentanyl and heroin from the southern border to the Eastern Seaboard. In this case, Trask is fighting a rival whose criminal genius rivals Trask’s own intellect, and—while Trask is bound by the legal code and his own set of morals—the mob boss on the other side of this battle is unencumbered by such restrictions. The investigation forces Trask to choose whether to operate within the legal system ot to venture outside it in order to bring down the murderous kingpin.
450 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 13, 2019
152 people are currently reading
99 people want to read
About the author
Marc Rainer
12 books48 followersMarc Rainer is a former prosecutor in the federal and local courts of the District of Columbia and the Western District of Missouri (Kansas City), and a former circuit prosecutor for the US Air Force's Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps. A graduate of the US Air Force Academy, he has more than thirty years eperience in the prosecution of major cases. He is married to a former Air Force OSI Special Agent, and lives in a suburb of a major American city. The first book in his Jeff Trask crime drama series, Capital Kill, has been ranked #1 in Amazon’s kindle store’s mystery series sales rankings.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
June 30, 2020
KCFiles
I seem to be slowly working my way through your stories. This one has been in my library awhile, thank you for this book.
I cried you know where. I laughed frequently. Was nice to know the songs in Trask’s head this time.
Thanks for a good tale and kudos to your editor hate a book filled with “oops” and “make me cringe at sentence.”
I seem to be slowly working my way through your stories. This one has been in my library awhile, thank you for this book.
I cried you know where. I laughed frequently. Was nice to know the songs in Trask’s head this time.
Thanks for a good tale and kudos to your editor hate a book filled with “oops” and “make me cringe at sentence.”
April 18, 2019
A must read
If yo u like great books you will really enjoy this one it is about crime but it is also a human interest story you will love
If yo u like great books you will really enjoy this one it is about crime but it is also a human interest story you will love
March 19, 2020
Superb
Almost quit but perseverance brought me to a fantastic ending. Sometimes I confused the bad guys but it was worth the read!
Almost quit but perseverance brought me to a fantastic ending. Sometimes I confused the bad guys but it was worth the read!
April 29, 2021
For those who love Law & Order, the Jeff Trask Crime Dramas are just what you need to satisfy your inner investigator. It has the perfect fusion of crime and courtroom drama.
Former Federal Prosecutor, writing under the pen name of Marc Rainer, has a dynamic way of blending his true life trial experiences with the fictional world of Jeff Trask to amp up the excitement of criminal investigation. He even notes at the end of the story which scenes were taken directly from reality and proves the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction. This includes the scene below and the opening scene on an airplane flight with a suspected drug dealer among the passengers. Scenes which might have appeared to be over the top turned out to be part of actual events.
These stories have an excellent mixture of the investigation and prosecution which details what truly goes into finding the criminals, determining guilt and then establishing that guilt in a way which would allow the prosecutors to obtain a verdict and a sentencing in a court of law.
I had forgotten that at the end of Death Votes Last that our main character, Jeff Trask, had resigned from the Federal Prosecutor’s office after having enough of Washington D.C. It was not until we joined Jeff in this story on the way to his job interview in Kansas City that I recalled that change in the storyline. So Mob Rules is actual more of a spin-off of the original Jeff Trask Criminal Investigation series and is now The Kansas City Files. I had a moment of disappointment because I enjoy stories when we build our investigative team over the course of the books and we left our team behind in Washington. But as Jeff joins the Kansas City US Attorney’s Office as their new Senior Litigation Counsel, he joins a new task force including Federal and local investigators and we quickly get to know our new team who all work together to capture criminals, instead of the usually stories of pissing matches between local and federal investigations. It will take time to get to know all the new players but the story had a great dynamic between this new group already.
Right from the start, Jeff is brought in to head the task force to go up against the local mob family. The local mafioso have appeared to turn away from their usual endeavors and opened juice bars which feature nude dances. Since there is no alcohol, investigators have no excuses for coming in and keeping tabs on these bars the way they would if they needed license to distribute alcohol. So the mob is free to cook their books and conduct other business behind their closed doors. Yet there is word that some of the junior mobsters are becoming entrepreneurs and dealing drugs for extra income. As if supplying heroin to the young and desperate for Kansas City isn’t bad enough, this heroin in laced with fentanyl and people are dying.
Jeff and the task force need to do more than know where the drugs are, they need to follow the trail all the way from supplier to distributors and collect the evidence to prove that guilt to a jury. Jeff and his team aren’t the only ones the dealers need to worry about either. On one hand, we have a local woman who lost her only son to this deadly laced drug and she wants to make the mob pay for their crimes. On the other hand, the local Don is very happy with the profits for his juice bars and he doesn’t want anyone to mess up his good thing with something that would bring cops sniffing around. He also wouldn’t be happy to find out that those dealers weren’t kicking their profits up the chain into his pocket like they are supposed to.
Jeff and his team working hard to follow the drugs but they need to hurry and finish their investigation and lock down their evidence before someone else gets to their drug dealers before they do. This story was tension filled wondering if Jeff would take down the drug ring before someone else would take them out.
I really enjoy the Jeff Trask Crime Drama series and am looking forward to seeing what other investigations the Kansas City Files will bring to the table.
Received an ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review.
See more at EBookObsessed.com
Former Federal Prosecutor, writing under the pen name of Marc Rainer, has a dynamic way of blending his true life trial experiences with the fictional world of Jeff Trask to amp up the excitement of criminal investigation. He even notes at the end of the story which scenes were taken directly from reality and proves the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction. This includes the scene below and the opening scene on an airplane flight with a suspected drug dealer among the passengers. Scenes which might have appeared to be over the top turned out to be part of actual events.
These stories have an excellent mixture of the investigation and prosecution which details what truly goes into finding the criminals, determining guilt and then establishing that guilt in a way which would allow the prosecutors to obtain a verdict and a sentencing in a court of law.
I had forgotten that at the end of Death Votes Last that our main character, Jeff Trask, had resigned from the Federal Prosecutor’s office after having enough of Washington D.C. It was not until we joined Jeff in this story on the way to his job interview in Kansas City that I recalled that change in the storyline. So Mob Rules is actual more of a spin-off of the original Jeff Trask Criminal Investigation series and is now The Kansas City Files. I had a moment of disappointment because I enjoy stories when we build our investigative team over the course of the books and we left our team behind in Washington. But as Jeff joins the Kansas City US Attorney’s Office as their new Senior Litigation Counsel, he joins a new task force including Federal and local investigators and we quickly get to know our new team who all work together to capture criminals, instead of the usually stories of pissing matches between local and federal investigations. It will take time to get to know all the new players but the story had a great dynamic between this new group already.
Right from the start, Jeff is brought in to head the task force to go up against the local mob family. The local mafioso have appeared to turn away from their usual endeavors and opened juice bars which feature nude dances. Since there is no alcohol, investigators have no excuses for coming in and keeping tabs on these bars the way they would if they needed license to distribute alcohol. So the mob is free to cook their books and conduct other business behind their closed doors. Yet there is word that some of the junior mobsters are becoming entrepreneurs and dealing drugs for extra income. As if supplying heroin to the young and desperate for Kansas City isn’t bad enough, this heroin in laced with fentanyl and people are dying.
Jeff and the task force need to do more than know where the drugs are, they need to follow the trail all the way from supplier to distributors and collect the evidence to prove that guilt to a jury. Jeff and his team aren’t the only ones the dealers need to worry about either. On one hand, we have a local woman who lost her only son to this deadly laced drug and she wants to make the mob pay for their crimes. On the other hand, the local Don is very happy with the profits for his juice bars and he doesn’t want anyone to mess up his good thing with something that would bring cops sniffing around. He also wouldn’t be happy to find out that those dealers weren’t kicking their profits up the chain into his pocket like they are supposed to.
Jeff and his team working hard to follow the drugs but they need to hurry and finish their investigation and lock down their evidence before someone else gets to their drug dealers before they do. This story was tension filled wondering if Jeff would take down the drug ring before someone else would take them out.
I really enjoy the Jeff Trask Crime Drama series and am looking forward to seeing what other investigations the Kansas City Files will bring to the table.
Received an ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review.
See more at EBookObsessed.com
November 22, 2019
After his last DC case where he got really disgusted with the politics there, Trask has been relocated to the to Kansas City assistant US attorney office. If he wanted to have a quieter life, he should have gone elsewhere. His first assignment is a big mafia case with 60 defendants and while on it, the new team gets information about fentanyl-laced-heroin being distributed by some mobsters.
I don't know why, but this book didn't please me as much as the previous ones. Maybe it's because the new characters of his Kansas team have still to grow on me (I do miss Dixon for sure) or maybe the story is a bit less original than the high profile cases in Washington, or maybe it's something else. I can't put my finger on it. The story itself was layered and extremely well constructed at a fairly fast pace. When 1 case is solved, a loose end leads to an even bigger criminal conspiracy.
I had to google search the situation about Kansas city and it's 2 states, maybe it's common knowledge for US citizens but it was a bit confusing for me. Another thing that surprised me was the firm statement that the mafia would not condone traffic in and dealings with heroin. As the author writes from his own experience, I have to believe him on this matter but it is news to me as I read very conflicting articles in newspapers that state that they have happily embraced that trade.
Though Lynn doesn't feature in the case itself, she's certainly present on the home front as are the 3 'puppies' that unfortunately get older and start showing ailments. I actually did shed a tear. They make out an intrinsic part of each book and the author clearly shows his own love for those animals;
And special praise for the ambiguous title. It's only at the very end you'll see the joke in it.
I don't know why, but this book didn't please me as much as the previous ones. Maybe it's because the new characters of his Kansas team have still to grow on me (I do miss Dixon for sure) or maybe the story is a bit less original than the high profile cases in Washington, or maybe it's something else. I can't put my finger on it. The story itself was layered and extremely well constructed at a fairly fast pace. When 1 case is solved, a loose end leads to an even bigger criminal conspiracy.
I had to google search the situation about Kansas city and it's 2 states, maybe it's common knowledge for US citizens but it was a bit confusing for me. Another thing that surprised me was the firm statement that the mafia would not condone traffic in and dealings with heroin. As the author writes from his own experience, I have to believe him on this matter but it is news to me as I read very conflicting articles in newspapers that state that they have happily embraced that trade.
Though Lynn doesn't feature in the case itself, she's certainly present on the home front as are the 3 'puppies' that unfortunately get older and start showing ailments. I actually did shed a tear. They make out an intrinsic part of each book and the author clearly shows his own love for those animals;
And special praise for the ambiguous title. It's only at the very end you'll see the joke in it.
October 4, 2025
DNF at 28%.
This series started so strong, but it's truly off the rails now. What has been a very tight police-procedural/legal drama has deteriorated into the mundane, predictable and uninspired drivel. Trask, who is the main character, is barely featured, as too many unimportant characters take the center stage- undeveloped, cliched characters to boot. The plot itself is boring and an exact repetition of past plots, but without the tight writing, suspense, humor and three-dimensional characters. The move from Washington DC to Kansas City also didn't help much, as the new team can't even compare to the old one, and everyone seems to get along from the get-go.
I really don't know what happened, but this series keeps getting worse and worse as it progresses. First three were superb, the fourth was good but was dragged down by the politics, fifth book was the author pouring his frustration over the current political climate, and this.. this is just... bad.
Done with this series.
This series started so strong, but it's truly off the rails now. What has been a very tight police-procedural/legal drama has deteriorated into the mundane, predictable and uninspired drivel. Trask, who is the main character, is barely featured, as too many unimportant characters take the center stage- undeveloped, cliched characters to boot. The plot itself is boring and an exact repetition of past plots, but without the tight writing, suspense, humor and three-dimensional characters. The move from Washington DC to Kansas City also didn't help much, as the new team can't even compare to the old one, and everyone seems to get along from the get-go.
I really don't know what happened, but this series keeps getting worse and worse as it progresses. First three were superb, the fourth was good but was dragged down by the politics, fifth book was the author pouring his frustration over the current political climate, and this.. this is just... bad.
Done with this series.
April 22, 2019
With a new locale for Jeff Trask, the tasks that he gets assigned are still highly challenging.
In this story, Jeff moves from Kansas City and is handing the assignment of processing Drug Crimes. The st one that he is assigned has mob implications and the action is non-stop. The new team that works with him is quite competent and is able to stem and solve this initial arrest of 60 individuals.
The fact that one of two of the Don's leaders are involved in activities that have not been sanctioned and results in Pierre killing Dom after Don had killed his own son for activities associated with drug dealing and the murder of the Don's sister and her husband; Big John.
The ending was well done and the part of Boo and the other two dogs was sad.
I highly recommend this story.
In this story, Jeff moves from Kansas City and is handing the assignment of processing Drug Crimes. The st one that he is assigned has mob implications and the action is non-stop. The new team that works with him is quite competent and is able to stem and solve this initial arrest of 60 individuals.
The fact that one of two of the Don's leaders are involved in activities that have not been sanctioned and results in Pierre killing Dom after Don had killed his own son for activities associated with drug dealing and the murder of the Don's sister and her husband; Big John.
The ending was well done and the part of Boo and the other two dogs was sad.
I highly recommend this story.
October 16, 2019
I thoroughly enjoy the novels in Marc Rainer’s Jeff Trask series. The author does not disappoint: interesting plot lines, character descriptions, seem-less prose make it hard to put down these books once started! The 6th and latest in the consecutive and chronological series follows the relocation of the Trask family from Wash. DC to Kansas City. Although well-researched and written, it is not the best book in the series, lacking a bit the freshness of previous Jeff Trask novels.
April 27, 2019
Another excellent story about Trask and his wife, their dogs, and his cases. Out of Washington, D.C. now and in Kansas City, he works against organized crime. Numerous good guys and bad guys fill this book, as well as some dog issues. I won't go into any details. If you liked his others books, you'll enjoy this one too.
May 7, 2020
Excellent story by a former prosecutor.
This book follows the case of fentanyl laced heroin and is extremely interesting. It also has the
nice touch of describing the prosecutors home life with his wife and three dogs, one of which is aging quite a bit and has diabetes.
There are more books in the series, and i plan to read them all.
This book follows the case of fentanyl laced heroin and is extremely interesting. It also has the
nice touch of describing the prosecutors home life with his wife and three dogs, one of which is aging quite a bit and has diabetes.
There are more books in the series, and i plan to read them all.
March 18, 2019
Marc Rainer
I have looked forward to this book after finishing the one before it. I was definitely not disappointed! I thoroughly enjoy all of the Jeff Trask stories and will be eagerly anticipating the next one! I highly recommend!
I have looked forward to this book after finishing the one before it. I was definitely not disappointed! I thoroughly enjoy all of the Jeff Trask stories and will be eagerly anticipating the next one! I highly recommend!
April 14, 2019
Great read!!
I love this author and the energy of his books. Jeff Trask is an awesome character! The books are exciting and I am so glad I have now added another author to my favorites list
I love this author and the energy of his books. Jeff Trask is an awesome character! The books are exciting and I am so glad I have now added another author to my favorites list
May 3, 2019
Mob Rules
Interesting novel about the investigations and legal issues surrounding the illegal drug trade. I would like more storyline about the personal lives of the characters and a little less legalese but that's just me.
Interesting novel about the investigations and legal issues surrounding the illegal drug trade. I would like more storyline about the personal lives of the characters and a little less legalese but that's just me.
April 18, 2020
Another great crime and legal thriller
Jeff has moved to Kansas City so we are introduced to some great new characters.
A well written and complex story with a good dose of dry wit. A thoroughly enjoyable read.
Jeff has moved to Kansas City so we are introduced to some great new characters.
A well written and complex story with a good dose of dry wit. A thoroughly enjoyable read.
March 31, 2019
Rainer moves to KC... Beefs the Mob!
While the change of location is a bit hard to grasp at first, Jeff Trask jumps right in with the mob. See who is gonna win this one.
While the change of location is a bit hard to grasp at first, Jeff Trask jumps right in with the mob. See who is gonna win this one.
June 19, 2019
Excellent!
So good! I really enjoyed this book. Did not disappoint! Can't wait for the next one! Super easy read as well.
So good! I really enjoyed this book. Did not disappoint! Can't wait for the next one! Super easy read as well.
May 10, 2022
I got to 20% of the book and already got about 40 names that were taking place in the story. Every new page - a new name. Hate these kind of books.
April 21, 2019
I enjoyed most of the book and the plot seemed well formulated. I found the sections about his dogs to be filler. Not far into the book I began skipping these 'dog' chapters. So four stars.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews