Great sequel to The Short Drop. Gibson Vaughn uses his computer skills to help a judge who gave him a second chance. Lots of action and a couple of new characters keep the pace up. Ends in a cliffhanger, but that isn't a problem, it just makes me look forward to the next book.

The second book in the Gibson Vaughan series by Matthew Fitzsimmons, Poisonfeather finds Gibson repaying a debt he feels he owes to Judge Hammond Birk, who helped him in his youth. Birk invested heavily with Charles Merrick, a billionaire, who cheated thousands of unsuspecting investors out of their savings. Even though he lost most of his money when convicted of fraud and sent to prison, he has intimated that he has millions stashed in offshore accounts. Since Merrick is soon-to-be-released from prison, hundreds of those who were cheated are trying to find his stashed money. Judge Birk is one of the victims, and feels guilty for talking friends and relatives into investing with Merrick. Gibson has nothing better to do, and begins an investigation. He is assisted by an ex-con, as well as a strange bartender, a Chinese spy and other assorted interesting characters.

While readers were left hanging in the first Gibson Vaughan novel, The Short Drop, it was expected that some issues would be resolved. However, this novel left more issues hanging, and while the main story is explained, most readers are probably left irritated and frustrated because the book doesn’t explain what the readers want to learn from either novel.

The book has plenty of twists and turns, and the story is basically pretty good. Gibson, et al are constantly in danger, and there is plenty of suspense which builds throughout. Vaughan’s scenarios aren’t particularly believable, and he sometimes takes on a “comic book” guise where he is super-human.

After reading this novel, and finding that there are so many hanging issues, many readers will choose to ignore the subsequent books because nothing fits into place. And even though the story is good, some of the issues are a bit confusing.

Because there are hundreds of excellent suspense/thriller writers out there, this may be one that can be skipped since there are too many things that aren’t explained. We still don’t know whether his partners from the first book are alive, for instance, and having to wait through several books certainly isn’t what readers want.


Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

After bit laboured start, perhaps due to the difficulty of framing the events of this second volume in the setting formed by the first (which, frankly, the author would also have avoided making, dropping only a few brief clue here and there, doing therefore that the novel proceed as stand-alone and earning a extra star on my part), the novel takes off and becomes little by little more credible. The protagonist is a loser at the right point, and his right-hand-man is really unusual, in his mixture of abysmal ignorance and flashes of really unusual knowledge. The 'bad guy' is perhaps a bit too stupid in his narcissism, but, after the election of Trump for president of the United States I am beginning to think that a character that, from my point of view of old reader from old Europe, is a caricature is rather more common than one would think. Good entertainment novel, not too deep, but well-written, and, in general, with good narrative mechanisms.
Thank Thomas & Mercer and Netgalley for giving me a free copy in exchange for an honest review.