The Counsel of the Cunning
Steven C. Harms

Steven C. Harms’ #2 in his Roger Viceroy series The Counsel of the Cunning, is a chilling twisty-turny, edge-of-your-seat rollercoaster ride that will keep readers on their toes trying to connect all the confounding plot dots. The novel is set in both the wilds of Guatemala and the states and features a tight knit team of impressive yet flawed detectives who leave no stone unturned searching for the truth and a world domination seeking villain that would give any Bond bad guy a run for his money. The entire Viceroy team are stand outs and in this installment readers will get to know Roger and Silk better while Regina remains an enigma. Fans of Conspiracy thrillers and crime dramas will find this one hard to put down and although it reads well as a stand a lone for deeper character understanding starting with book 1 maybe a better choice for some readers.
Roger Viceroy was wondering how to tell his teammates, Regina Cortez and Trevor Moreland aka Silk that due to budget cuts their Milwaukee Special Crimes Unit was being disbanded when he’s made an offer hard to refuse by former Senator Jürgen Sandt. The former Senator wants to hire the trio to be his personal detective agency to work righting the wrongs of the world sort of a brown ops stealth agency flying under the radar of organized law enforcement. The first thing he wants the team to do is to look into the disappearance of his son, Bertram who went missing along with his entire group in the Guatemalan jungle on a mission trip ten years ago. The whole group is presumed dead but Jürgen has a father’s intuition that Bertram is still alive. Plus the last detective he sent looking for Bertram disappeared under mysterious circumstances himself.
As the investigation progresses it becomes clear to the team researching both at home and in the wilds of Guatemala that something very sinister is going on and has far reaching tentacles.