So I continue my reading of Chuck Dixon‘s Levon Cade series with the next two in the series: Levon’s Hunt and Levon’s Prey, which are the ninth and tenth novels. I’ll continue to post two novels at a time, and the series is up to 12 total. Also, it’s being developed into a TV series. We’ll see if it happens and if it’s any good.
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 enjoyed. Most recent is the graphic novel Alphacore.
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. Reacher was an MP, but Cade was a black ops soldier.
In the first novel, he got into matters that forced him to go on the run with his young daughter, Merry, 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, he has the key to possibly billions in stolen money, which both the FBI and Treasury want, and they are hot to find him. But he is always one step ahead of them. That story thread was finished in the seventh novel. Since early on Levon and Merry have been living in Levon’s old hometown in Alabama with Levon’s uncle Fern. He has gotten involved with a local veterinarian, and her daughter is Merry’s best friend. Plus in the seventh novel, Merry saves a young girl who was trafficked and she has become Levon’s second daughter, Hope.
This is a series that I highly recommend people start with the first volume. While each novel is standalone, each builds off the prior ones.
In Levon’s Hunt, Levon continues his war against the child trafficking that he encountered in the prior novel. He figures that there has to be someone who is protecting many of these people, and is working up the chain, so to speak, to find that person. But this causes some from the U.S. Marshals Service to notice and start also going after the same loose group, and take notice of what he is doing. Has he put a new target on his back? For other threads, Fern is working to set up a legal moonshine operation with the help of Levon and Levon helps a veteran who has decided to hole up in the woods near his home.
Next up, in Levon’s Prey, Levon had actually ended his fight against the child traffickers even though he had identified the person who had been shielding these people. The investigation by the U.S. Marshals had been taken over by the FBI, who basically ended it. But the politician who had been behind this sends his bully boy to find the materials the lawyer in the last novel had, which will lead him to Levon. Or more precisely, the Army vet he has been helping. How will that all end?
Meantime, Fern’s new moonshine business is having problems getting up and running, which Levon has to help with. But everything goes south and Levon and his now extended family need to move on to a new place.
As noted, this is a great action series. Certainly, the next novel will find Levon and company in a new location. Hopefully, they can build a new life for themselves, but you know something will happen. I look forward to it.
