Gatekeeper($19.95Value)

Description

Following the critically acclaimed The Sniper's Wife, Archer Mayor returns with his 15th riveting crime novel in the classic Joe Gunther series.When heroin traffickers establish a vast and swift pipeline into Vermont, Joe Gunther's Bureau of Investigation is called in to stem the tide. But with pressure building from politicians and resentment burgeoning in the ranks of rival investigative units, Joe's team is forced to take wild risks: Sammie Martens must go deep undercover as a drug dealer; Lester Spinney must investigate a loved one; and Joe must make some agonizing choices as he works to reconcile a noble end with highly dubious means. With a "War on Drugs" in full swing within Vermont's borders for the first time, Archer Mayor's beloved sleuths will be driven to their very limits as they struggle to rid their community of a plague of epic proportions. *Starred Review* A cop spends his off-hours on surveillance outside a dope house, staking out his own teenage son inside. Another cop feels compelled to enter a search-and-save campaign when her niece, strung out on heroin, is shot in an attempted robbery at a convenience store. In scenes like these, where the lines between dopers and coppers are smudged by family ties, Mayor delivers a powerful portrayal of how far-reaching the effects of addiction are. This explosive antiprocedural uncovers the near impossibility of the war against drugs, as it shows both the flood of drugs and how police are often rendered helpless by departmental politics and fears for the safety of their loved ones. Mayor adds shock value by setting the heroin invasion in bucolic Vermont, an invasion announced by the hanging of a street dealer from a railroad trestle. Joe Gunther, special agent with the newly created Vermont Bureau of Investigations, and the cops who work for him are given an impossible, politically motivated assignment: eliminate heroin from the state. As one of their female agents embarks on an extended buy-bust campaign, and as other cops confront drugs within their own families, Gunther is faced with dilemma after dilemma as his own officers' lives are pitted against those of drug users. A wrenching, no-easy-answers look at current narcotics tactics, set off by intriguing characters. Connie Fletcher Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Archer Mayor lives in Newfane, Vermont.