A terrorist plot has been planned to use drones to reduce the American West Coast to a pile of ashes. Can an aging police detective stop the plot?
Dronefire isn’t just a novel, it’s also a cautionary tale about a real danger we all face from factions who wish to destroy us. A young woman is found dead in a San Francisco alley. Though the death seems to be accidental, a careful look at all the evidence by a top-notch criminalist reveals mystery after mystery surrounding her demise.
Working with the criminalist is a doggedly determined SFPD detective who just can’t shake the similarity to a case from the 1970s. That case was worked by a detective who was forced into retirement because of the voices he constantly hears. Voices that could lead them both to the hidden truth behind the girl’s death.
That truth is both staggering in its scope and represents an actual danger to each one of us today.
Excerpt
It was a cool day in San Francisco. The city’s famous, marine layer was like magician’s cloak, covering the entire city as though it was about to disappear as soon as a giant magician pulled away the cloud cover with a flourish.
The trick seemed to be challenged by the Transamerica building as its extended, pyramid shape had punctured the low, cloud layer. It seemed as though rain might come pouring out of the hole at any minute.
There wasn’t any chance of that happening, though. In spite of being a city famous for nearly constant fog, the bay area was plagued by a high pressure area that plugged up the bay like a giant cork constantly diverting all the storms around it to the north where a considerable amount of rain constantly fell on Oregon and Washington, but consistently skipped California.
That high pressure was unpredictable, of course, and whenever it decided to stubbornly squat on the bay it plugged up the city making it more like a desert town and bringing on serious droughts that could last for years. So, today was cool—almost cold in fact—and dry. Perfect, walking weather. As long as you weren’t thirsty.
The SFPD’s Central Office was on Vallejo Street. Before he checked out of the office, Brenner had asked his partner, Buford “Boffer” Paar to prepare a list of SOs (sex offenders) living in or around the Tenderloin. They would split up the list and begin questioning them tomorrow. It
was Wednesday today, so they had two days before Brenner really needed to place a report on Stack’s desk. He didn’t expect that the killer was an SO, but Stack was right in that he had to check out every possibility this early in the game.
It wasn’t just SOs he needed to speak to. He also needed to compile a list of all the victim’s family and known associates. Everyone would need to be interviewed, some of them more than once. Just thinking about it drew a sigh from Brenner. Well, that was the essence of the job. The vast amount of time a detective spent was on the phone or knocking on doors. Most of which were dead ends. Most of them for sure, but one wouldn’t be. It would be the payoff.
Brenner knew that most perps lived in fear of that knock on their door. It would gnaw at their guts, driving them a little crazier each day. Until, finally, the knock did come and with it a sense of guilty relief. So much so that many of them would confess right on the spot, almost hugging the detective their relief was so great.
And then there were the serials. The ones who really loved killing. Even more than a love of killing was their love of the game. The ultimate game. The game of catch me if you can. These guys would commit the most heinous crimes, the kind of crimes that would drive the police crazy with the raw, desperate need to bring the perp down and bring him down hard.
Except they couldn’t catch him. Because he was out to prove one thing above all others—that he was far, far smarter than the police, and committing these awful crimes was just a way of proving that. Over and over again. The killing wasn’t really important with these sweethearts. It was the game.
These perps didn’t fear that knock on the door either. Because they were smart. So smart that they prepared for that knock with bobby traps, alternate exits and elaborate, well-thought-out escape plans. In Brenner’s
experience these guys never really believed they would be caught.
Professional Reviews
Police procedure out the window.
The unique male point of view from several wacky characters in this novel turns what would be a run-of-the-mill police procedural, which I love, into a well-written, gripping story, full of rich description of each scene and characters who seem to come alive in the mind.
Maybe we all hear voices, like a couple of the detectives do in the story, but we take no notice. From now on, I’ll pay more attention to my intuition. Of course, the trick is to interpret the message. And there lies the crux of the problem in this plot.
The heroine dies right at the start, but this will ensure that male readers appreciate the story all the more. As a matter of course, more characters drop, leaving wispy clues which will help our detectives uncover a dastardly plot that threatens the whole country. An angel of death reveals a scenario of fire and cleansing to the villain, a tyrant who rules his followers with guile and power.
Police procedure out the window, double-dealing between departments; nothing goes according to plan.
“We’re going to use nine megaton warheads in space and we’re not sure they’re large enough to be effective. Why would you even consider using kiloton-range surface-to-air warheads as back-up?” The answer was succinct. “Because they’re all we have.”
