Right on schedule in September, the fourth Thomas Adam Grey thriller by Duane Laflin, The Deadly Skulls, came out. As I’ve been enjoying this series, I quickly got and read it. This series continues to be great, and I look forward to the next ones.
Laflin is a retired professional magician who now writes novels. Wayne Reinagel has done the covers for all books so far, and we get another that is clearly inspired by James Bama’s Doc Savage covers. And that’s not a bad thing. I was fortunate to meet both of them at the recent PulpFest, and I hope we will see them there in the future.
Thomas Adam Grey is a Secret Service agent tired of protecting corrupt politicians. He has decided to quit and start his own personal-protection business, based in Kansas City. Thomas is more than 6 feet tall, with hair halfway between brown and blonde, and gray eyes. He is often compared to a lion in human form. While very capable, he is not invulnerable, so things don’t always go his way.
Assisting him is his secretary and clear love interest, Tiffany Swensen, who runs his office. However, in the third novel, she actually accompanied him for a good part of the book, which was interesting. Is this a change we’ll see going forward? Also, unlike other thriller heroes, Thomas doesn’t have others he can call on. His former boss at the Secret Service has only occasionally made an appearance, only via phone, as he does here.
In The Deadly Skulls, we start off with a pair of American outlaws now living in Bolivia around 1906. But they are running out of money, and so, with a girlfriend, decide to rob a mining camp. But things go sideways, and they get no money. The girlfriend ditches them. Before they left the mining office, they grabbed some papers. The two outlaws discover a treasure map to a large cache hidden by Jesuit priests. But supposedly, it’s protected by poisonous gas. The two look and find it. One goes in too far and succumbs; the other gets sick but gets away. Before things go too badly, the second outlaw mails off the map and information to a relative in the U.S. before dying himself.
Now, back to today, Thomas is contacted by a man who needs protection. He is at a casino in Nevada after winning a million dollars, but thinks the casino is trying to ensure they get his winnings back. Thomas, after looking at options, decides to drive to the casino. There he meets his client, the diminutive Louie Ford. After a bit, he is able to get Ford back home and ensure (in a somewhat clever way) that the casino and its boss won’t bother him.
And so that should be that. But Ford soon comes back. His family was the one who received that treasure map, which he still has. Now a million dollars richer, he wants to hire Thomas to be his bodyguard for a treasure hunt. It will be just a two-week trip to Bolivia, and should be fun, barely an inconvenience.
But Bolivia has issues with cartels, and the two run into a group that is running a training camp. Thomas has little choice but to pretend to work with the head of the camp, Ramon Montoya, until he can get Ford and himself out of this. Along the way, they also team up with two young Bolivians. One, Omar, was tricked into coming to the camp, thinking he was being recruited for the military. The other, Beatrix, was there to be a sex slave after the cartels killed her parents.
The four soon get away, but are pursued by Ramon as well as Lilly Bane, an assassin, and later a deadly gang called the Posse of Skulls. Will they survive?
Along the way, they find the mine. But Thomas also learns that Lilly is going to head to the U.S. soon to carry out an assassination. So not only does he need to eliminate the threat of Ramon, but he must also prevent the assassination. And when all that is said and done, there is still the matter of the treasure.
In the end, it looks like Thomas will be in a better position financially, but I suspect that we may see more of Omar and Beatrix in the future if they decide to move to the U.S. But I’m not sure how they might show up in future stories. I can’t see them truly getting into the action, but who knows.
As before, we get a section going over the inspiration for some of the elements of the story, something I’ve come to expect with many techno-thrillers. It’s a nice added touch.
The next volume, The Medusa Sting, came out around Thanksgiving 2025, and a review is coming. The author has been putting them out regularly, which is rare, and he indicates he has already worked out the next few novels. We’ll see how this goes, and I hope the series continues for a while.
If you liked this one, check out some of the author’s other works. The Carson Gold series seems similar and is even recommended at the end of this volume, as are the Eli Brown books, though I haven’t read them myself.
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