Death threat A Buddy Steel thriller

The death of his mentor, Deputy Commander Jeremy Logan, gives LAPD cop Buddy Steel the chance to reflect on the decades-long friendship between the two, beginning when Buddy was a newbie detective with a reputation for going rogue. The first time Logan had his back was ten years earlier, when the cops got a tip-off that the Los Pacos drug gang planned a massive drop of crystal meth in Los Angeles. The tip-off came from an LAPD cop positioned deep inside the Los Pacos organization, and Buddy's shocked to learn that the mole is Kara Machado, with whom Buddy had a torrid affair when the two were trainees. But Kara was ambitious and didn't want the encumbrance of a long-term relationship, so she broke off with Buddy. Now Buddy has to rescue her before Francisco Reyes, a savvy, tough, Harvard graduate who now heads Los Pacos, learns that Kara is the mole and kills her. So Buddy comes up with a bold and secret plan--which Logan approves--to extract Kara, take down Reyes and Los Pacos, and prevent the crystal meth from hitting the streets of L.A. Taut suspense, brutality, bloody violence, an explosive ending, and Buddy playing tough guy hero make for a page-turner of a story for thriller fans.

The death of his old LAPD mentor sparks Buddy Steel's memory of a 10-year-old case. Itching to get promoted from officer to detective in the Hollywood Division in 2012, Buddy sees a shortcut to his dream when Deputy Commander Jeremy Logan asks him to take a leading role in an operation targeting Los Pacos, a drug cartel preparing to offer interested clients a super-high grade of meth. But the price is equally high. Logan wants Buddy to masquerade as a Los Pacos client to replace Officer Nicholas Morgan, another cop who posed as a well-heeled buyer before he was executed. And the reason Logan's chosen such an inexperienced officer as Buddy for the job is that he has a history with Officer Kara Machado, who's already under the covers with Francisco Reyes, Pacos head of operations and heir apparent to the whole megillah. After hemming and hawing for less than a minute, Buddy agrees, but the nature of his job changes the instant he spots Kara with Francisco and she mouths, "Help me." Now Buddy sees his job not as infiltrating Los Pacos but as exfiltrating the ex-lover who wouldn't commit to him. Francisco, who's not so distracted by the anti-police riots roiling the city that he hasn't sussed out that his bedmate isn't to be trusted, whisks her off to Mexico; Buddy enlists three old Marine buddies to make sure his improbable off-the-books rescue comes off. After a slow start that seems designed to remind fans what a tough maverick Buddy is, there's nothing to slow them down as the tale hurtles toward its eminently predictable climax. A speedy read that's even more one-dimensional than Buddy's first four adventures, which is saying a lot. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.