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As a favor for his friend and
former law partner, Matt Simms, Pepper Keane agrees to steal a champion bluetick
coonhound from the heavily-guarded home of Thad Bugg, leader of the notorious biker
group, the Sons of Satan. Once he’s got the hound, Pepper figures that his job is
done—but it’s only beginning.
The hound belongs to Karlynn Slade, Bugg’s
common-law wife, who agreed to work with the FBI before she took $300,000 in cash and
disappeared. Karlynn is in government protection, but she’s getting bored—so Matt asks
Pepper to keep an eye on her and her dog until the FBI can get her set up in the Witness
Protection Program. But then she disappears—leaving the cash and the dog behind—and
Pepper decides that it’s up to him to find her before Bugg (or the FBI)
does.
Meanwhile, Bugg has also hired Pepper to find Karlynn—and the
dog—which only manages to make things even more complicated. As Pepper tries to hunt
down Karlynn—all the while keeping the FBI and the Sons of Satan away—he also comes
across a few other clues that could help him find answers to a long-unsolved murder
that’s been haunting Pepper for years.
I’ll admit that I was a bit
skeptical when I first picked up Bluetick Revenge. It seemed a little
more…redneck…than my usual tastes. But I was pleasantly surprised by Pepper Keane (who
first appeared in Cohen’s The Fractal Murders). He’s almost as much fun as Kinky Friedman—though
a little less outrageous and irreverent and a little more philosophical. Pepper, the
ex-Marine and ex-lawyer, living out in the mountains in Colorado, surrounded by hippies,
has the right amount of tough-guy mixed with the right amount of armchair philosopher
(he’s read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance more times than he can
count). And the story, filled with biker-gang criminals and murderous skinheads, may be
adventurous and often violent, but Cohen manages to add just the right amount of humor to
keep it light and fast-paced. The story itself may not be the most cohesive, jumping
from one case to another, sometimes dropping a few pieces and adding a few others along
the way, but it’s a fast-moving, entertaining read—and I look forward to reading more
about Pepper in the future.
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