No Man's Dog: A Detective Sergeant Mulheisen Mystery by Jon A. Jackson

From the Publisher

In No Man's Dog Jon A. Jackson's longtime hero "Fang" Mulheisen is back for a volatile confrontation with his old nemesis, Joe Service. Add to the mix drug dealers, international terrorists, federal agents acting outside the law, and the hellish fury of crime-babe Helen Sedlacek, and you have a Molotov cocktail. The novel opens with Mulheisen's aged mother nearly slain by an incomprehensible bombing at an orderly environmental protest. Mulheisen resigns from the force to nurse her, but as she recovers he turns his implacable attention to the bombers. The Task Force can't decide if it's anti-environmentalists, international terrorists, or a drug cartel's attempt to quiet a witness or spring him-but Mulheisen quickly notices what the Feds haven't: a gun-happy survivalist on the scene. Some dogs prefer to hunt on their own, and in Badger Games readers saw that Joe Service would run the most vicious beast to earth. Now Mulheisen reminds us he's the old dog in this hunt. Will this fight bring Service and Mulheisen together, at risk of losing the prey?

Publishers Weekly

The 10th installment in Jackson's series to feature Detective Sergeant Mulheisen (after 2002's Badger Games) delivers sturdy entertainment, though the post-9/11 plot hinges on the sometimes confusing interactions among Mulheisen, criminal Joe Service and FBI operative Colonel Vern Tucker. The bombing of a municipal building that nearly kills Mulheisen's mother leads the detective to the backwoods of Michigan, where he's threatened by militias and the enigmatic M.P. Luck, who's perhaps the book's most intriguing character. Meanwhile, Service, after settling down into a new life with his common-law wife Helen Sedlacek, finds himself in danger from unknown parties. He seeks out Mulheisen, and together they work to untangle a mystery that involves Luck, various governmental agencies and an old nemesis. Inevitably, they fall in with Tucker, who likes to play factions in the intelligence community against each other while advancing his own shadowy aims. Fortunately for our heroes, the bad guys are often ineffectual and less than bright. Despite what seem like high stakes, no one ever really suffers because of those stakes-everyone's just a little too nice. A subplot in which Sedlacek searches for her missing previous husband feels like padding. The ending neither disappoints nor rises above reader expectations; it could easily be the climax of a solid action film. Agent, Bob Dattila at Phoenix Literary Agency. (July 16) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Jackson continues his quest to enlarge the darkly comic circle of Detroit crime to epic proportions. When Cora Mulheisen, outside a suburban courthouse to protest another environmental outrage, is nearly killed by a bomb, her son, Det. Sgt. Fang Mulheisen, retires from the force to care for her and wait for the day she regains her will to speak. Even when Lt. Col. Vernon Tucker, that government-paid soldier of fortune (Badger Games, 2002), asks him to help with the new Homeland Security Task Force he's heading, Joe's not interested in avenging Cora. Off in Montana, Mulheisen's sometime quarry, mob handyman Joe Service, plans to lead an equally placid retirement in the home he and his lover Helen Sedlacek are building. But both men are jolted out of their tranquility, Mulheisen by his mother's returned speech, which will threaten her life if she ever remembers what she saw outside that courthouse, and Joe by the news that a drug informant he tried to kill is looking for him. So both men abandon the women they love and light out for the premises of Martin Parvis Luck, the home-grown terrorist suspected as the brains behind the bombing and much more ambitious goals besides. The highlight in this installment of the Mulheisen/Service saga is a razor-sharp series of conversations between nominal enemies and even more nominal allies that recast domestic and international terrorism as a ludicrously inflated game of Who's on First. Agent: Bob Dattila/Phoenix Literary Agency

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Table of Contents