Body Broker

July 22, 2019
PI Jack Dixon, the likable narrator of this promising series launch from Ford (the Paladin fantasy trilogy), looks into the disappearance of 18-year-old Gabriel Kennelly, who vanished from Farrington, an elite boarding school in Furnace Bay, Md., where he was a track star. Gabriel’s friends say he was happy, except for one who claims he was a buckling under the pressures at Farrington. Dixon thinks Gabriel’s disappearance may have nothing to do with school pressures, but rather with strange alliances of money, power, and drugs among those who should have been looking out for him, including his school psychologist, who has ties to a drug-dealing Nordic motorcycle cult, and his elusive father, who sends his own bodyguards to thwart the investigation. The story moves along at a good pace with well-defined characters, in particular Jack, who abhors violence, doesn’t wear a gun, and would rather get beat up than shot. That he lives on a houseboat will resonate with fans of John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee. Readers will look forward to Jack’s further exploits.

July 1, 2019
A private eye's search for a missing high schooler leads him into a foreign world of wealth and the secrecy it affords. Hardscrabble Jack Dixon is something of a type: a tough loner living on his Maryland houseboat, Belle of Joppa, and using his know-how and experience as a cop as the basis for his work as an investigator for the Dent-Clark firm. When he's hired to find Susan Kennelly's kid, Gabriel, Jack is forced to take a long, hard look into the world of what money can buy. Gabriel's dad is the boss of ADI Holdings, a big-time company in Wilmington, Delaware, where his position evidently makes him too busy to return either Susan's or Jack's calls about Gabriel. A trip to ADI does not go well for Jack. Or maybe it goes better than it could have when Jack's forcibly ejected by some of ADIs more, um, informal associates, who make it clear the boss is not to be disturbed. Good thing Jack's a tough nut to crack. His welcome at Gabriel's boarding school, Farrington Academy, is barely warmer, but at least the faculty merely stonewall without physical threats. Well, at first. Stuck with few leads and numerous threats to his well-being, Jack trusts his gut, which leads him to the rabbit holes of a complicated drug ring and a secret society that spell potential danger in all directions. Given these two leads, Jack tries to break the case while not breaking himself. Ford's mystery debut has heart but reads like an early draft, alternating between attention to detail and broad strokes on some big plot points.

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