Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Desmond Aloysius Limerick (Dez to his friends) is back.  He’s a “gatekeeper,” which means he has the ability to enter any locked/secured facility, a skill he learned in the British military.  Even though he’s now retired, his gatekeeping skills are still coming in handy, along with the many other abilities he possesses.

As Chain Reaction opens, Dez and Mr. Jamison, the latter a member of the British espionage establishment, are in Spain to purchase, for an unbelievably large sum, a formula for synthetic opioids that has no addictive qualities, developed by a Spanish chemist.  Within seconds of their entering the chemist’s lab Dez realizes that it’s all a sham.  The professor is no more Spanish than Dez is, and the formula he shows Dez and Jamison is that of the atomic structure of caffeine.

Then a group of gangsters tries to enter the lab, but thanks to Dez’s skills they don’t have a chance.  He has boobytrapped the door leading to the lab, messing with the electronic locking device on the door and using liquid nitrogen that he puts together, wounding the men as they attempt to force their way in.

The alleged professor and his assistant lead Limerick and Jamison out of the building, leaving behind the wounded gang members of the cartel who were there to stop the sale they believed would end their lucrative drug trade.  And when Dez and Jamison turn around, the two con artists have disappeared.

The time and place shift, and it’s eighteen months later in New York City.  A day earlier Dez had received a text supposedly from his friend and former bandmate Kansas Jack, asking if he can substitute for an ailing guitar player the following evening at a performance in Manhattan.  Dez is delighted to accept and takes the next flight to New York City.  The room reserved for him is at one of the hotels inside the brand-new Liberty Convention Center in Newark, New Jersey.

Before meeting Kansas Jack, Dez walks around the Center and becomes aware of several pairs of military men trying to fit into the crowds of tourists in the hotel’s lobby.  They’re dressed in civilian clothes, but to a former military man such as Dez it’s obvious what they are.  As he’s deciding what to make of this, a young woman comes over to his table.  It’s Catalina Valdivia, known professionally as Cat, the “professor’s assistant” from Madrid.

As they reconnect in a martini bar in the Center, Limerick tells Cat his suspicions about the men he’s seen walking around.  Are they robbers, Cat asks?  Could they be terrorists?  Less than a minute later they hear the first of three almost simultaneous explosions; the thousands of people inside the Center are at risk.  Dez immediately works out a plan to thwart the terrorists or robbers, whomever they are, and the loss of innocent lives is averted.  The ones who planted the bombs are not so lucky, however.

Dez then meets with his friend Kansas Jack and learns that the text asking him to come to New York did not come from him.  Obviously someone wants him in Manhattan, and Dez believes he knows who.  Now Dez, Cat, and FBI hostage negotiator Stella Ansara are working together to get the hostages safely out of the Liberty Hotel, uncover those behind the takeover, and learn the reason that Limerick was lured to the city.

Chain Reaction successfully continues the spellbinding adventures of Dez Limerick.  As in the two previous novels, Gatekeeper and Deadlock, Dez is a compelling character, and his abilities and charisma will keep you reading until the final page.  James Byrne has done it again.

You can read more about the author at this website.

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