A thriller involving Corporal Jack Taggart of The Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Corporal Jack Taggart is an undercover member of The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and has been known to circumvent ‘the rules’ in order to achieve justice.

When three people are brutally murdered on the orders of Purvis Evans, aka ‘Pure Evil’, aka ‘Pure E’, the new leader of Satan’s Wrath Motorcycle Club, a message is left on the wall for Jack - ‘4 U JT’ has been scrawled in the victims’ blood and Jack knows that he has a fight on his hands to maintain law and order.

Jack has to use all his wits and street craft in order to battle against this new threat, much to the chagrin of his immediate boss, Staff Sergeant Rose Wood, and the new and totally out-of-place Assistant Commissioner Morrison.

Don Easton, who himself worked undercover for 20 years, including 7 years in the RCMP Intelligence Unit, has written a good thriller where the characters – especially Jack – are all well-described and plausible, and the plot moves on apace, culminating in the final denouement. Mr Easton brings his knowledge and experience into play at almost every turn, and you get a real sense of ‘being there’.

This is a good story and is well worth a read.

Sméagol

Breakaway reviewers received a copy of the book to read

This book is a bit of a mixed bag as it follows the efforts of Jack Taggart and his partner as they are beset by an incompetent bureaucrat and a biker gang from Hell. The story is full of violence and gore, but falls a little short on the details of the mounted police action and the alphabet soup of cooperating agencies. Jack would be a chess wizard as he uses his knowledge of the characters involved and human nature to work a convoluted plan to eliminate both the evil maniac running the biker gang and the incompetent bureaucrat. It is a good story, but a little too over-the-top to be a great story. It definitely plays on knowledge derived from earlier stories in the Jack Taggart series.

This series is new to me so I know I missed a lot of the nuance of a long established character and his relationships. That said, it was a darn good read, plot driven and full of action. Taggart, who has worked as an undercover RCMP officer, has a, to put it mildly, complicated relationship with the Satan's Wrath motorcycle club. This time it's clear they're going to come after him. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. This is a well written page turner which opened my eyes to issues with motorcycle gangs in Canada, as well as the RCMP. I'm going to look for more from Easton as Taggart is one of those gray area hero types who make for entertaining reading.

This is a fast paced, action packed thriller, it is very well written which adds to the suspense. I really liked the writing style and the humour in the book. Details of the characters lives make it more believable and the book was just the right length.