I was recently sent a copy of J. Walt Layne’s latest novel, Russian Roulette. It’s the fourth in his Champion City series, though you can read this without reading the prior ones. But hopefully, if you like this one, you’ll check those as well.
I will warn you that the second and third (Breathless and Stranglehold) were written to be a single work, but his publisher decided to split it. So probably best to read them as one. Our hero here did appear as a secondary character in Stranglehold.
As noted, I was sent a copy to read and review.
This one is the first from Layne’s own Champion City Press, and is intended to be the first of a series of stories set there (this is important to note). And the cover art and design are excellent. This is always a problem with people doing their own publishing, of getting someone to do at least a decent job of layout and design, much less cover art. But the work by Jeffrey Ray Hayes, who has done other work in the New Pulp field, is wonderful. Hope this continues with future volumes in this series.
The novel is set in 1970, which is somewhat the height of the Cold War. The Vietnam War is still going on. We actually don’t start in Champion City, but in Berlin in East Germany. We start as a spy thriller.
A Russian couple is there on a mission. While it appears that the man, Klaus, is there to take out a certain politician, it turns out to be much more. But they have decided to defect. So the Americans send an agent to bring them out. And if that task isn’t already difficult after they complete their mission, it’s made more complex when a team of SVR (Russia’s foreign intelligence service) spy hunters arrive to figure out who was responsible for the assassination. And they are also on their trail.
Two-thirds of the novel deals with the SVR’s investigation and the rescue and their chase of the couple and the American. Not everyone involved will get out, but the couple and the American agent do succeed.
We then move to Champion City, and things change to a police procedural. Our defector couple is trying to settle in as average middle-class Americans. Klaus has taken a job with a restaurant-supply company. His wife, Ivana, is trying to be a good housewife.
And we are introduced to our hero: patrolman, soon-to-be detective sergeant, Bill Davis. We’ll get his background as well. Champion City seems fairly large. It has an international airport. What state it is in is unknown, though I suspect it’s in the Midwest. Clearly, it’s not on the coast.
Well, the problem always is that someone who kills for a living isn’t likely to just stop.
There then begin to appear a few bodies that show clear signs of being a professional hit. Davis is lucky to be involved with the recovery of the first couple. And as a new detective, he is working on following the clues back to those responsible. Soon he is successful, to a large degree.
But as I noted, this is meant to be the first of a series. We get a great setup with a good hero, a very bad and dangerous villain, and other secondary characters. There are a pair of very disturbing cliffhangers at the end. I very much want to see the next in the series to see how this progresses.
I do wonder about some aspects. To what level will Ivana play in all of this, with her new life? Will we see the return of any of the agents, either American or Russian, from the first part of the novel? It will be interesting to see how this progresses.
At some point, I’ll need to get his previous works set in Champion City as well, though I know those storylines don’t impact this one.
If you like crime novels and thrillers, this is one to check out.
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