"We turned up our collars from our jackets as we walked cautiously across the street, squinting against the grit that the strong breeze was tossing."
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The Deadly Line by Allen E. Boekeloo Trafford Publishing
book review by Russell Roberts
Private investigator Nick Edwards has gone to Alaska to see an old African-American friend in the military with whom he has lost touch. However, the old friend doesn't show up to greet him and is reported as AWOL (Absent Without Leave) from his base. Edwards finally traces him to a hospital, where he is in a coma because of a savage and seemingly random beating. This gets Edwards' investigative blood boiling, and he decides to find out why his friend was assaulted. At first the crime seems racial–the friend had a white girlfriend–but as Edwards digs deeper a more sinister motive emerges.
Boekeloo is a former private investigator who uses former cases for source material. The book is written in a no-nonsense style, and authenticity is one of its strongest virtues. Fans of Mike Hammer and similar private investigators will find a kindred spirit in Edwards. The very toughness of Edwards, however, works against the book–never is there any reason to be concerned for his safety. (Even James Bond gets into jeopardy occasionally.) The story also suffers from a lack of twists and red herring characters/situations to temporarily sidetrack and mislead the reader. The book contains a second, shorter Nick Edwards story, a character that could certainly develop into a serviceable member of the hard-boiled detective fraternity.