Review: Murder and Mayhem in "Red Mountain"
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 12, 2013
The four member team sent to Rhinebeck, New York, had one target and one mission objective. The Durres Syndicate wants Walt Bergman dead and they want his records. As the commander of the NYPD Intelligence Division he knows where the bodies are buried on and off the force. He knows the identity of confidential informants, undercover police officers, and more. The information he has is priceless. Among other things he is involved in, Walt Burgman is trying to use one very bad man, Edon Calcani, to get an even worse guy by the name of Josef Brint and permanently stop a weapon selling operation. The plan is to take them both down and anyone else around with no help from the FBI or The Joint Terrorism Task Force.  That was his plan when the plumbers he called about a leak showed up at his door.It was late in the evening when Detective Mickey Reidel got the call in Queens. Walt Bergman is dead, things are hitting the proverbial fan at every level in the NYPD, and the brass is very hopeful the death is a suicide. Mickey is being put on the case with the expectation that he can be counted on to understand the situation and do what he is told. They should have known better as Mickey, like everyone in this book, has his own complicated agenda. The brass can wish all they want, but, it takes Mickey a matter of minutes to clearly see that Bergman's death was anything but a suicide.  After all, who lies down on the floor and then shoots himself?Shifting through the point of view of Mickey, his former partner, DiPino, cartel big shots, and numerous other characters, readers are taken through a wild ride that primarily covers an intense 48 hours as scores and grudges start getting settled. Bodies fall, allegiances shift, agendas collide, and Mickey and Dipino in mostly separate storylines struggle to stay alive in the ensuring chaos and carnage.Self-published by the author, the book is an enjoyable thriller despite the occasional typo. The cast of characters is large with the read shifting constantly through the various characters. Everyone in the book has an agenda with most driven by political expediency to save their own careers, jobs, lives, etc. Character depth is rather limited, as is the case with most thrillers, and tends to be of the stock character type. The exceptions are Mickey and to a lesser extent Dipinio who are fleshed out a bit more than the other characters with backstory, motivations, etc. Despite the tag line of A Detective DiPino Thriller the majority of the book is aimed squarely at Detective Mickey Reidel with DiPino playing a distant secondary role.As one expects in a book billed as a thriller, the focus is on the action and moving the multiple storylines forward at an intense pace. Such is the case here in Red Mountain: A Detective DiPino Thriller where the action is often fast and furious. It soon becomes clear to readers that when the book slows down for personal reflection internally with a character or a revealing moment between characters somebody is sure to suddenly and unexpectedly die as the author's solution to keep things going is to always kill another character. Despite the occasional typo and the author's tendency to occasion over write with lines such as "his dinner of scrambled eggs and Irish whiskey orbited through his digestive tract like an obnoxious tourist in midtown" the resulting read is a pleasant diversion.Material was picked up during the author's advertised free read promotion for my use in regards to an objective review.Kevin R. Tipple 2013