Review by Booklist Review
Early on, readers might think they're in the small-town world of Bill Crider, or maybe Terry Shames. Josie Gray is police chief of tiny Artemis, TX, commanding her skeleton force of nice, old folks whose biggest foe is arthritis. A new worry, though, is a counterculture group that has taken over an abandoned church outside town. When a power grid goes out and their world goes dark, the locals suspect the outsiders. A clash is inevitable, and suddenly we're in an actioner, then a procedural. Who shot the teenage cult member? The leader blames Josie. Another shift and mighty forces gather on either side, with SWAT teams and hostage negotiators and a larger, scarier scenario emerging. A group of nutters is seeking to shut down the world by supporting, then using, technology to link cults like this one. Josie is out to stop them, and Fields tells her story in a functional, rather colorless style. The main attraction is its detailing of the damage computers can do: "The prophecy in Revelations of a world order is coming true."
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The Drummers, so-called because they march to their own beat or more precisely to the dictates of their charismatic leader, Gideon Masters, have taken over an abandoned church in Artemis, Tex., in Fields's timely sixth outing for Josie Gray, the town's police chief (after 2016's Midnight Crossing). According to Gideon, the Drummers are "like-minded people who want to live off the grid without government interference," but could they be responsible for the shots fired at three West Texas power substations? When a Drummer member, a paroled felon, is seen with a handgun tucked into his belt, Josie is forced to intervene. A shoot-out ensues at the church, and 15-year-old Mandy Seneck, a cult member, is fatally struck by a stray bullet. The internet soon fills with posts accusing Josie of creating the circumstances that led to Mandy's death. Another death within the Drummers' community shifts the investigation's direction to Gideon. Fields lays out a plausible route for cult indoctrination of those who think--or at one time thought--of themselves as good people. This convincing look at homegrown terrorism will resonate with many readers. (Apr.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Josie Gray, police chief of Artemis, TX, has a powder keg in her small community. The Drummers, a religious group, have bought an empty church for their headquarters and moved all 21 members into the small building. They refuse to send their children to local schools, and they block up all the windows. When Josie meets with Gideon, the Drummers' leader, he insists they're a peaceful group. But the locals view them as a cult. When transformers are destroyed, shutting off power in a 40,000-square-mile area, Josie suspects the Drummers. She has no way of getting inside the church until a waitress photographs one of the Drummers, a parolee, with a gun. Josie teams up with the sheriff's department to serve a warrant. Then all hell breaks loose. Gunshots are fired, and Gideon takes to the internet to announce that Josie has shot a teenage girl. Josie doesn't believe that, but she asks federal agencies to help with the standoff. Every law enforcement officer in the area dreads another Waco, but this time the entire power grid is at stake. VERDICT It's been five years since the last Josie Gray book by the Hillerman Prize-winning author of The Territory. The riveting mystery is an intense, ripped-from-the-headlines story for anyone looking for a compelling tale of homegrown terrorists with grandiose schemes.--Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Police Chief Josie Gray returns after a one-book hiatus to lock horns with a survivalist cult that's taken root in her hometown of Artemis, Texas. Wayne Masters, who's reinvented himself as Gideon, the charismatic leader of The Drummers, maintains that his community of some 20 adults and children, which has purchased a decrepit church building for a dollar, only wants to be left alone. But when a suspicious series of transformer fires leaves the whole town without electricity, the finger of suspicion points at The Drummers. When the deputation serving a warrant for parole violation on Drummer Clyde Hamblin arrives at the church, they're met with gunfire. And by the time the confrontation has ended, 15-year-old Mandy Seneck is dead inside. Gideon insists she's been shot by Josie, who returned the fire from outside, though the ballistics render his claim manifestly impossible. Ex-Marine Leon Spinner, who's grown more and more disenchanted with his leader, is sure that Gideon has killed Mandy himself to cover his abuse of her. As The Drummers splinter into pro- and contra-Gideon factions, Josie and her force work patiently to uncover an ever spreading network of connections between The Drummers, the dealer who supplied their guns, the terrorist saboteurs of the EX-Sovereigns, who seem to be using them as pawns in their much more ambitious and nefarious plans, and Josie's own mother, whom Josie finds connected to Gideon in a most embarrassing way. The inventive, deepening twists make this comeback read like a superior episode of Law & Order: West Texas. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
