STEVE BREWER - SHOTGUN BOOGIE (2016)

Synopsis/blurb……

Jackie Nolan knows how to drive big trucks and she's facing a mountain of debt. Put the two together, and Jackie soon finds herself hijacking semis from truck stops around Albuquerque, NM. But when one of the trucks turns out to be full of stolen Army munitions, Jackie finds herself in deep trouble. A lot of bad people are after those guns, and they're willing to kill to get them.

"Enough criminal mayhem ... to fill three crime novels." -- Albuquerque Journal

"SHOTGUN BOOGIE is my kind of crime novel. Brewer creates a cast of genuine characters and thrusts them into a zip-line plot involving drug cartel killers, the U.S. military, the DEA, and a pair of deplorables in search of weapons to further their misguided cause. The storytelling is effortless and compelling. Steve Brewer delivers another winner!" -- Bill Fitzhugh, award-winning author of PEST CONTROL

Steve Brewer writes the kind of books I like to read. The only problem I have is, I didn’t discover him early enough to be able to read as many of his books as I would like to. With over 30 to his name and the pace at which he produces them, I’m doomed to be forever playing catch up.

Shotgun Boogies introduces us to Jackie Nolan. Jackie was taught to drive big trucks by her dead father. With her mother suffering from Alzheimer’s and a stack of medical bills, she’s reduced to boosting trucks in order to juggle finances and try and keep her head above water.

Jackie’s a decent person faced with an impossible dilemma. She loves her mother and the criminality is not a feckless choice, it’s an economic necessity. One truck she boosts sparks her spider sense and getting a bit too nosy for her own good, she cracks the load and takes a peek………guns, guns, and more guns. Her morality belatedly kicks in and she isn’t going to hand it back, despite the threat from her boss. Multiple deaths in a Mexican drug war won’t sit easily on her conscience.

Cue mayhem – Mexican hitmen, an ex-Army hardcase trying to secure his pension, some peckerwood white supremacists, a frazzled boss and an agent for the Bureau of ATF – all want their hands on the weapons and a piece of Jackie Nolan is the best way to go about it. If she can keep her head down long enough some of the competing outfits may cancel each other out.

I really liked this one. A likeable character in an impossible situation with only her wits to help her survive and the added baggage of an ailing parent who is only fleetingly in possession of her mental faculties. Great action and pace and a strident rhythm to the piece that keeps you turning the pages. 

Plot, setting, character, humour, a hint of romance and a decent pay-off at the end. What’s not to like?

Even better is the fact that Jackie returns in a sequel, Homesick Blues.

4.5 from 5

Steve Brewer has his website here.

Read in February, 2018

Published – 2016

Page count – 327

Source – Kindle Unlimited

Format - Kindle  

Brewer has been enjoyed before - Bank Job and as Max Austin - Duke City Split and Duke City Hit.