You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Scan barcode
A review by richardrbecker
The Devil's Trident by George P. Norris
4.0
Although closer to 3 1/2 instead of 4 stars, The Devil's Trident is an engaging, well-written read by George P. Norris. It's the story of a retired NYPD Detective and Navy SEAL, Michael Keough, who is drawn into a web of intrigue after his former police partner, also retired, Vincent Cussico, is robbed and killed shortly after their traditional Sunday poker game but not before killing the assailant.
Besides being a 10-999 call, it looks like an open and shut case. A down-on-his-luck dishonorably discharged veteran picked the wrong mark, leaving both men dead. Except, this robbery wasn't a straight-up robbery. It was a hit. And Cussico wasn't the intended target, it was Keough.
The revelation comes to Keough slowly as seemingly unrelated events begin to look related, including one of his former SEAL team members committing suicide on the same night his partner is killed. This SEAL isn't the only one. Two more of the six who served on the same mission are dead, and a fourth is missing.
The story runs into some trouble, aside from being an old military mission cover-up, because the top-secret mission is based in part on a QAnon conspiracy theory that Osama bin Laden has a body double. Why Morris picked it is beyond me. It could have been any mission, and this doesn't lend anything exceptional. The person behind the cover-up has plenty of other baggage that is even more plausible.
In addition to this annoyance, Norris cheats the climax of his novel by tucking it away as an explanation in the epilogue is very problematic. In fact, he uses the mechanism to wrap everything up, including a needless mistaken identity tease that Norris uses to end the book. He would have been better off writing a few more chapters and leaving the tease out.
Still, Norris has talent and the ability to tell a good cop story. He served as a highly decorated officer of the law for 20 years.
While I originally received a free copy of the book to review (I review one indie author every three months or so), I decided to purchase my own to read on Kindle. The Kindle edition is mainly clean, except for two cases or so, where part of the narrative is accidentally caught on the wrong side of a dialogue quote mark.
Besides being a 10-999 call, it looks like an open and shut case. A down-on-his-luck dishonorably discharged veteran picked the wrong mark, leaving both men dead. Except, this robbery wasn't a straight-up robbery. It was a hit. And Cussico wasn't the intended target, it was Keough.
The revelation comes to Keough slowly as seemingly unrelated events begin to look related, including one of his former SEAL team members committing suicide on the same night his partner is killed. This SEAL isn't the only one. Two more of the six who served on the same mission are dead, and a fourth is missing.
The story runs into some trouble, aside from being an old military mission cover-up, because the top-secret mission is based in part on a QAnon conspiracy theory that Osama bin Laden has a body double. Why Morris picked it is beyond me. It could have been any mission, and this doesn't lend anything exceptional. The person behind the cover-up has plenty of other baggage that is even more plausible.
In addition to this annoyance, Norris cheats the climax of his novel by tucking it away as an explanation in the epilogue is very problematic. In fact, he uses the mechanism to wrap everything up, including a needless mistaken identity tease that Norris uses to end the book. He would have been better off writing a few more chapters and leaving the tease out.
Still, Norris has talent and the ability to tell a good cop story. He served as a highly decorated officer of the law for 20 years.
While I originally received a free copy of the book to review (I review one indie author every three months or so), I decided to purchase my own to read on Kindle. The Kindle edition is mainly clean, except for two cases or so, where part of the narrative is accidentally caught on the wrong side of a dialogue quote mark.