Title: Dead Man Walking – When Duty Calls
Author: Harvey Cleggett
Publisher: Xlibris
ISBN: 978-1-6641-0525-6
Genre: Thriller/ Action Adventure
Pages: 354
Reviewed by: Jake Bishop
Pacific Book Review
If surfing on a wave of adrenalin makes you seasick, you might want to take a Dramamine when paging this sequel to Harvey Cleggett’s previous adventure novel, Whatever It Takes. If you enjoy being swept into the middle of mayhem, murder, and all manner of malevolence, then Dead Man Walking may be just what the literary doctor ordered. This is another in the author’s When Duty Calls series that features Australian police officer Michael Ballard and his hard-nosed partner, John.
This tale starts with a bang, literally. Make that multiple bangs—the sound of ammunition from lethal weapons careening around the inside of a prison that is under siege by a ruthless gang of criminals known as the Death Squad. They work for The Board, a Russian criminal enterprise with international tentacles that reach far and wide, snaring well placed business and government types into their nefarious dealings. The police have managed to snag a couple of Board operatives as well as greedy politicos and are in the process of interrogating them when all hell breaks loose and so do The Board’s bad guys—one of which happens to be a woman who takes second fiddle to no male in attitude, avarice, or even assassination when circumstances call for it.
While the main thread of the storyline revolves around the authorities’ attempts to re-capture the Russians who got away—with the assistance of the particularly evil, loathsome, nasty, brutish, and unfortunately intelligent Sergey—various subplots and supporting characters weave their way in and out of boat battles, car chases, bomb plantings, and more. There’s an ingenious plan to have a material witness vanish. There’s a Texan who turns up with lots of ways to help the good guys but with a potential conflict of interest that no one saw coming. There’s a plot to hijack canisters of nuclear waste that can be used for the extortion of billions. There’s even a strange offshoot of the Mafia group, ‘Ndrangheta’ that just might be even more diabolical and dangerous than The Board itself. And, always hovering in the background, is the potential harm which could come to Ballard and John’s family the closer the two officers get to giving The Board’s members the justice they deserve.
As in his earlier effort, author Cleggett keeps the pedal to the metal in this fast-paced race through police procedures, familiar obligations, and all manner of suspenseful situations. He keeps credibility high, sentimentality low, and humor never more than a paragraph away. While administering hefty portions of criminal behavior, he never loses sight of the inherent humanity required to eradicate it. This is old-fashioned good guys versus bad guys in a new-age world, and he promises more to come in his next offering, Knife Edge – When Duty Calls.
