So I continue my reading of Chuck Dixon‘s Levon Cade series with the next two in the series. I guess I’ll continue to post two novels at a time. Hopefully, by the time I get to the eleventh, we’ll have the twelfth.
Again Chuck Dixon is a long-time comicbook writer who has worked on a variety of characters at several publishers. I’ve read his stuff on Eclipse Comics’ Airboy series, but he has worked on The Punisher, Batman, and other characters and titles. He did an excellent comic adaption of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s The Hobbit, which I have and enjoyed.
Levon Cade is a former Marine who was involved in black ops. Some have compared it with the Jack Reacher series, but there are differences.
In the first novel he got into matters that forced him to go on the run with his young daughter, his wife being dead. But in subsequent novels, he has had to deal with various bad guys, and these are usually pretty bad people. Most importantly in the second one, as he has the key to possibly billions in stolen money, which both the FBI and Treasury want, they are hot to find him. But he is always one step ahead of them. And it seems some information on him is not available. Someone is protecting him.
The next novel, Levon’s Kin, has Cade returning to his hometown, a small community in northeast Alabama. He and his daughter are now staying with his uncle Fern, also a former Marine. He meets a former high-school friend, now a local vet, and his daughter Merry will start helping her and learn to ride horses. Is this a possible future love interest? But his half-brother, a deputy sheriff, pulls him into things. It used to be that folks in the area made moonshine; now, most have moved on to meth. But there are also some meth labs being run by members of Mexican cartels. And Cade gets dragged into the middle of a rivalry between the cartels and the local “Dixie Mafia.” A lot of folks will get killed, Cade will almost get his balls pulled off, and can he put an end to things? I was actually surprised by how this was done.
And, no, he won’t be moving on at the end, which is a change.
We also get a return by the FBI and Treasury agents, Bill Marquez and Nancy Valdez, who seem to have started a relationship. The FBI is in charge of the case at first, but is slowly winding it down without any new leads. Now Treasury will take over. At the end of the novel, they got a new lead: the re-appearance of someone we haven’t seen since the first novel: Cade’s father-in-law.
Then we have Levon’s War, which follows. Treasury is working to close in on Cade, as they have a general idea where he is from. But at the same time, Cade learns of things going on in Iraq, and a promise he made to someone there, a Yazidi who has been fighting ISIS. Cade uses his contacts to get into Iraq and repay his debt. Sounds crazy, and most tell him not to bother. But he feels he must honor his word.
So while Cade is in Iraq, Merry and Fern have the Treasury agents on their door. Not good. Merry is taken by the county and put in a foster home. But things don’t go well. Then she’s in juvenile care. Can she get out and at least return to Fern?
And what Cade is doing is no walk in the park. He gets hurt by an attempted bombing, and through a bit of hardship, finds his friend. But now they need to rescue his family. Or at least his daughters. But they are in the hands of ISIS, which likes to auction off Yazidi girls. Will they succeed?
At the end of the novel, Treasury is out of the investigation. Merry is back with Fern. But Cade, while safe, is still in Iraq. Can he get home safely? And who is now running the investigation on him?
I was actually surprised by this one, as it kind of changes things. Going halfway across the world makes it a lot harder to get home safely. I know that will be what the next novel is about. How will that work out? And when he gets back, will he and Merry remain with Fern or head out? And if they don’t, might this happen in a future novel? We will have to see.
I’ve been enjoying this series. It’s fast-moving, with not a lot of exposition or introspection, other than from Merry. We don’t get dumps of info on things, but it comes slowly. We learn more and more about Cade as things go along, but it comes slowly. And you wonder what will happen next? I look forward to the next ones.
