William Ungerman, The Devil’s Finger

William Ungerman, The Devil's Finger - I picked up this paperback book entirely by accident while browsing amongst the racks at Barnes and Noble. What I found turned out to be quite a read. The cover is a bit garish, but I have to say, drew me to pick it up and investigate. I finished it in two sessions and haven't stopped sweating yet.

Granger and Rawlings, are two ex (but maybe not) Delta Force assassins/snipers, all-around-terminators that get involved in a botched mission in Beirut. Initially, things are really convoluted and I was scratching my head by the end of the Prologue. It turns out this opening launches the novel's central, unrevealed, core. Now unemployable the men are in psychological states. However, salvation seems to appear via a letter from two Texas border-town orphans. Turns out the kids thought they were writing a couple handymen just happening to be advertsing in a Soldier-Of-Fortune-type magazine.

In the forgotten town of Zapata the two men are faced with drug lords, an army of killers and paramilitary mercenaries as well as an enemy stalking them from out of the past. The present requires hard choices be made. Their allies are two priests and a woman who may not be whom she claims. There is also a mysterious rifleman whose omniscence and motives are suspect.

The violence in The Devil's Finger is graphic, stupendous really, some might say over the top. But then violent death is like that I'm told. This book is not for the squemish or faint of heart or for those who fancy romance novels. The sex is also graphic, some of it brutal, but that's the nature of the beasts within.

The Devil's Finger has it all: Intrigue, suspense, twists-a-plenty and an ultimately satisfying ending that has a perhaps perverse, but nonetheless persuasive and pervasive sense of ultimate justice that doesn't depend upon law.

Both my thumbs way up. Is there another book coming on the heels of this one, or has this author penned something else? Google, here I come.

Frank Mott, Captain USMC (ret) with some input from FI Heilig who concurs in spades.

The Devil's Finger

William Ungerman

Jove, Oct 2004, $6.99, 400 pp.

ISBN: 051513841X

Drug lord Esteban Rios runs the border town of Zapata. He controls the police chief, the city council, and the only bank. He builds clinics and playgrounds while running drugs across the border where he owns and operates brothels. His reign of terror extends to the monthly games; these events enable incarcerated Mexican men an improbable chance of freedom if they remain alive long enough. The only institution not controlled by Rios is the church where a priest has just answered an ad in New Breed magazine.

Lon Grainger and Myles Rawlings used to work for Uncle Sam as contract killers, but when the former missed a target the work dried up. They came to Zapata not knowing what is going on, but quickly learn about Rios' stranglehold on the town. They plan to start a mini-war with the objective being to kill Rios and his associates. Rios also prepares for battle because he will never give up his power without a fight.

Fans of action thrillers with plenty of gore will want to read THE DEVIL'S FINGER. At first Lon and Esteban seem like identical twins, but the American mercenary has a social conscience and even tries to keep collateral damage to a minimum while his adversary turns good things into evil and does not worry about innocents. Lon seeks redemption for the accidental death of a child and in Zapata he sees the way to do good. William Ungerman grips the reader's attention with this shoot-em-up magnificent two-crime thriller.

Harriet Klausner