James O. Born, Field of Fire

Field of Fire

James O. Born

Putnam, Feb 2007, $25.95, 352 pp.

ISBN: 0399153985

ATF agent Alex "Rocket" Duarte has returned from Bosnia and is working diligently to get a promotion to a supervisory position. At present he and his partner are searching at the migrant camp in western Palm Beach County for Alberto Salez so they can arrest for him violating firearms statutes. The wily man escapes and later that night Salez's car explodes.

Caren Larson, a lawyer for the Department of Justice, is assigned to work with Duarte because there have been two other G-4 bombings, one in Seattle and one in Virginia. Assistant Attorney General Bob Morales believes that the men who were targeted in the bombings were trying to organize labor and someone wanted them to stop. Duarte's instincts tell him there is a cover-up going on and when another person gets murdered in California, by the same hit man involved in the other bombings, he believes Caren is holding back on him, something that could cost all the people working on the case their lives.

FIELD OF FIRE is a fantastic police procedural with a protagonist who, once he gets the scent of a crime, is like a bloodhound who needs to continue until he gets his prey. Women will adore the hero who is innocent when it comes to females but has superlative investigative skills that allow him to think outside the box. Surprisingly, the hitman has a conscience in spite of how he makes a living as he goes out of his way not to kill Duarte. He needs his own novel.

Harriet Klausner