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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jun 2022, 432 pages
Paperback:
Aug 1, 2023, 432 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Peggy Kurkowski
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An idyllic California town. A deadly secret. A race against killers hidden in plain sight...
Rancho Santa Elena in 1987 seems like the ideal Southern California paradise—that is, until a series of strange crimes threatens to unravel the town's social fabric: workers attacked with mysterious weapons; a wealthy real estate developer found dead in the pool of his beach house. The only clues are poison and red threads found at both crime scenes. As Detective Benjamin Wade and forensic expert Natasha Betencourt struggle to connect the incidents, they begin to wonder: Why Santa Elena? And why now?
Soon Ben zeroes in on a vicious gang of youths involved in the town's burgeoning white power movement. As he and Natasha uncover the truth about Santa Elena's unsavory underbelly, Ben discovers that the group is linked to a much wider terror network, one that's using a new technology called the internet to spread its ideology, plan attacks, and lure young men into doing its bidding. Ben closes in on identifying the gang's latest target, hoping that the young recruit will lead him to the mastermind of the growing network. But as he digs deeper in an ever-widening investigation, Ben is forced to confront uncomfortable truths about himself and his beloved community, where corruption is ignored and prejudice is wielded against fellow citizens without fear of reprisal.
Chilling and timely, The Recruit follows one man's descent into the darkness lurking just beneath the respectable veneer of modern life.
Chapter One
Detective Benjamin Wade was parked in the emergency lane of the Lucky's parking lot at Alta Plaza, admiring the sight of the snow-covered Santa Ana Mountains shouldering out of storm clouds. It had snowed overnight down here, too, on the flats of Rancho Santa Elena, and shoppers, pushing their carts toward the entrance to the store, gawked at the rare spectacle of it. He was stealing a fifteen-minute lunch in his idling unmarked cruiser to put away an "animal style" In-N-Out burger, keeping an eye on the Salvation Army Santa who was pocketing change when no one was looking. He was just about to walk over there to introduce himself to St. Nick when the Code 3 hot response squawked in over the scanner. Child in distress, Marsha Lynn, the daytime dispatcher called over the radio, 19734 Jupiter Street, California Homes. Mother on-site.
Ten minutes earlier, Ben had called to check in with his ex-wife, Rachel, on the cruiser's Motorola cellphone during her planning period at the ...
Setting The Recruit 25 years ago lends an eerie sense of prophecy to the story, as the brutish faces of white supremacist movements are an all-too-familiar feature of today's current events. The Recruit is a nail-biter in the classic sense of the thriller, offering taut prose, compelling and diverse characters, and pitch-perfect pacing that delivers an explosive ending reminiscent of real-life events. Despite the unpleasant subject matter, Drew underscores the fact that good people still outnumber the bad ones — and that hope is an ever-replenishing gift we all should hold onto…for dear life, if necessary...continued
Full Review
(885 words).
(Reviewed by Peggy Kurkowski).
Graham Moore, author of The Holdout
The Recruit is thoughtful, relevant, and brainy. Alan Drew paints such a vivid portrait of a seedy world, you're convinced you'd never want to visit it. Yet as the story tightens its grip, you soon realize you can't bear to leave. Jeffery Deaver, author of The Bone Collector
Extraordinary! The Recruit is as smart and stylish as it is compelling. The plot speeds like a race car on a breathtaking course filled with twists and turns, and the novel brims with rich psychological insights into the many fully drawn characters. I can think of no other thriller that portrays its vital themes—all relevant to our times—in such a riveting and up close and personal way. Bravo!
After the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon fell to North Vietnamese military forces in April 1975, hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese escaped to American ships off the coast, either by boat or helicopter. In Alan Drew's The Recruit, the character Bao Phan is one of these refugees. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) estimates that over two million people left Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the 20 years after the fall of Saigon, and by 1992, more than a million had been admitted to the U.S.
One of the points of arrival for refugees was the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station near Irvine, California. In the late 1970s, El Toro received tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the war-torn region. After their first steps on American ...
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