Thursday 14 September 2017

DIETRICH KALTEIS - TRIGGERFISH (2016)


Synopsis/blurb……

Rennie Beckman is a dishonored ex-cop with only two things on his mind: his new boat, the Triggerfish, and his hot date, an environmentalist named Vicki. After the two unknowingly dock the boat in the same secluded cove as a Mexican cartel’s drug submarine, the date ends with a bang.

With the cartel’s coke-for-guns deal with local bikers torched by Beckman, he’s forced to go on the run with half the underworld chasing him through the streets of Vancouver and the waters surrounding it. While he tries to stay alive, a woman from Beckman’s past — currently on the run from CSIS and the anti-terror squad — comes back to settle an old score.

When the gangs start to go after his friends, the ex-cop stops running and turns the tables. With a ragtag crew of his own, Beckman fights the cartel and bikers, head on. Fast, vicious, and thrilling, Triggerfish delivers a story where all the criminals are in conflict and no one is certain who will come out on top.

Another slice of top class Canadian crime fiction from Dietrich Kalteis with Triggerfish. Triggerfish is the third novel from Kalteis after Ride the Lightning and The Deadbeat Club.

My kind of book…….. a cop becomes an ex-cop and a boatman, a drug-smuggling submarine owned by a Mexican cartel, a biker gang trading guns for cocaine, a raspberry thong-ed environmentalist, a sexual encounter interrupting the drugs transfer, and the aftermath. The cartel coming after our main man Beckman and his date in an effort to eliminate the witnesses.

Action, violence, sex, vegan food, environmentalists, the sea, a hapless assistant, a concerned friend, a love rival, drug-runners, bikers, a stabbing, a terrorist on the most wanted list, a low-level criminal duo of uncle and nephew in over their heads, cocaine and guns, opportunity, theft, torture, arson, death, fisticuffs and more.

Fast-paced, entertaining, engaging, funny in all the right places, educational (whoever knew the cartels smuggled drugs in purpose built-submarines? not me), satisfying.

Ticks in every box.

4.5 from 5

Ride the Lightning was enjoyed, thoughts here. As was The Deadbeat Clubhere.

House of Blazes - a historical novel set around the time of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the forthcoming Zero Avenue await.

Dietrich Kalteis has his website/blog here. Catch him on Twitter - @dietrichkalteis   and Facebook here.

Read in August, 2017
Published – 2016
Page count – 266
Source – review copy from publisher ECW Press

Format - paperback


8 comments:

  1. This one sounds like a really interesting setup for a crime novel, Col. And it sounds as the pace is nice and fast, too. Glad you enjoyed it.

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    1. Margot, thanks. I really enjoy reading this author's work. Lots here to like and the sea added an interesting element to the setting.

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  2. Col, I'm trying to figure out what elements are not there in this crime fiction. It seems to have just about everything.

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  3. Prashant, I was fascinated by the submarine element in the plot. I've not crossed paths with that before. I had to google it afterwards and apparently drug cartels use them as way of transporting their product to avoid detection. I think the authorities have cottoned on now.

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    1. Actually, I was wondering about that drug-smuggling submarine. Never heard of it before.

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    2. Apparently they have some high value seizures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine

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  4. I am sure I have told you that I have Ride the Lightning, so I need to reading that soon. Really.

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