Redback

Starred review from December 6, 2010
At the start of Russell's thrilling fourth John Marquez novel (after Deadgame), DEA special agent Marquez and an informant, Billy Takado, meet brothers Luis and Miguel Salazar, members of "the most violent cartel in Mexico," in a Baja California bull ring as part of an undercover drug operation. When Miguel executes Takado as a warning, Marquez takes the blame and is forced to leave the DEA. Two decades later, as an agent for the California Department of Fish and Game, Marquez discovers that wealthy poacher Emrahain Stoval was the ruthless criminal behind Takado's murder and is now the target of a special FBI task force. Even though the choice jeopardizes his family and stirs dark memories, Marquez becomes a temporary FBI agent to pursue the cunning predator. Meanwhile, he realizes that someone he knows and trusts must be leaking information to Stoval. The tension rises as the unpredictable plot skitters and jitters along, powered by smoothly understated prose.

December 15, 2010

Just how monstrous can the targets of the California Department of Fish and Game be? John Marquez's fourth case (Dead Game, 2005, etc.) provides a surprising answer.

Before he joined Fish and Game's Special Operations Unit, Marquez was supervisor of the DEA's Group 5. His career flamed out with the execution of informant Billy Takado and the deaths of three of his federal colleagues, one of them apparently taking kickbacks from Emrahain Stoval, the fearsome money man for the Salazar drug cartel. After being eased out of the DEA and retreating from his affair with agent Sheryl Javits, Marquez married his sweetheart Katherine, settled into his role as stepfather to her daughter Maria, and found work hunting poachers. Now, just as he's hot on the trail of bighorn hunter Patrick Maitland, Ted Desault, his old enemy at the FBI, approaches him with an extravagant offer. Certain that Stoval has fingers in many pies—cocaine smuggling, illegal trophy hunting, trafficking in animal parts—Desault wants to mount an all-out effort against him. He offers Marquez a one-year assignment as a Task Force Officer, "the James Bond of wildlife enforcement," whose job is to track Stoval wherever he goes and nail him on whatever charges he can. Just to sweeten what looks like a rotten deal, Marquez realizes that Patrick Maitland is really Stoval.

Russell's narrative is so drastically compressed that you can barely take in the many action sequences, betrayals and violent deaths in this breathless survey of how much worse international trafficking has grown over the past 20 years.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from December 1, 2010
DEA agent John Marquez is principled but often conflicted, tough but committed to his job. So when a meeting with one of Mexicos biggest drug dealers, the Salazar Cartel, ends in disaster, John is devastated. He knows the Salazars arent the ones to blamethe mysterious Emrahain Stoval was behind the fiasco. John wants revenge, but before he can start his search for Stoval, his bosses at the DEA threaten to fire him because of renegade behavior. Before that happens, John resigns. At loose ends, he signs on with the Special Operations Unit of the California Department of Fish and Game. Nearly 20 years later, he finds himself in yet another nightmarish disaster that centers around Stoval and opens up all the old wounds and memories from decades ago. Offered the chance to go after Stoval, John doesnt think twice. Readers looking for a superbly crafted, cleverly plotted, highly suspenseful thriller with a larger-than-life hero need look no further than Redbackor, indeed, the entire John Marquez series. Outstanding!(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)