Review: Quick reads with a great 30's take on Detective agencies
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 2, 2014
To write, and say briefly what you have to say, is unusual.  Caliber Detective Agency is about a young boy found by a German settler in a covered wagon.  He had a huge gun in his hand.  They tried to calm him down and he surrendered the gun but kept repeating the number 11.  Three Indian braves come charging toward the family and the boy quickly took the gun back and shot all three straight between the eyes.  Then the boy started saying 14. They did not speak very good English so they saw Caliber on his gun and asked him his name and decided it was Caliber.  Jacob Caliber became a legend in the west.  His son moved the not very profitable detective agency to New York and Jacob Caliber the Third became a living legend by saving the President's life.  His son was married and had two sons of his own, but  died an early death.  His wife built the nationwide detective agency and left the old man to handle the dangerous cases (Red cases).  Her son was an exact copy of his grandfather and his younger brother was sent to law school.  After visiting his grandfather and brother, he hurried to meet his mom in a coffee shop nearby before his law firm interview.  The coffee shop was robbed and the cook killed.  One of the customers was in television news and used his camera to capture everything and Christopher Jacob saved his mom by picking up the cook's gun and drilling 3 holes in the center of the robber's foreheads including the one who held a gun to his Mom's head.  Chris had never used a gun in his life.These are short stories that tie in from the first Jake Caliber, whose real last name was Steel, to the present Jake 3 and 5.  The stories are short, but they convey a complete and unhurried book without all the fake ups and downs.  They handle the cases that baffle other people.  Jake 3 has been shot over 30 times and survived a car bomb.  He is a living legend and the Sam Spade kind of detective.  They also tie into Well's other series "Blue Steel" related to the Calibers and whose father was one of a long line of Texas Rangers.  Blue works as a bounty hunter and the "Taken" series about a serial killer who fell in love with his victim and married her instead.  He protects her and helps her with her criminal profiling.  They get into the minds of these killers and take care of the ones the law cannot touch.