A new thriller series I discovered is Chuck Dixon‘s Levon Cade series. At this time there are almost a dozen novels in it.
For those not aware, 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.
When I heard of this series, it was loosely described as “a former military man who used to be a black-ops soldier, now finds himself using those skills.” Another description compared him to Jack Reacher, another ex-military character that I’ve enjoyed reading. But neither description does the series justice. I would also describe the series as New Pulp, as the stories are stripped down. It’s mainly action — with little in the way of over-explanation, drawn-out scenes, excess exposition, or the like — which are (or should be) hallmarks of New Pulp-style writing.
I read the first two books in the series, Levon’s Trade and Levon’s Night. Based on how the series is structured, I would recommend reading the series in order as each one follows the next, though each one is stand-alone. A not a lot of time is spent on bringing the reader up to speed on things. But we’ll sometimes see the return of secondary characters here and there.
We meet Levon Cade in the first book. We discover he’s working security at a construction site in Alabama, has some unique skills, and has seen some action. Over time we learn he was working for the U.S. military, but we don’t get the details but clearly in black ops. He was married, but his wife died of cancer, and he has a 9-year-old daughter. But she’s in the custody of his in-laws (wife’s parents). His father-in-law hates him and makes it hard to see his daughter, and is fighting him for custody. As his father is a rich doctor, he has the means to drag it out, while Cade can only hold down a low-paying job.
Then his boss’s daughter goes missing. She’s a student at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Police can’t find anything, and try to say she ran away. But his boss doesn’t think so. What little he has figured out is that Cade’s ex-military background may help him. So Cade does take the job as the extra money will help pay for his custody fight.
He quickly finds that he’s up against a group of Ukrainian criminals, not quite the Russian mafia. He’s trying to find out if the girl is alive or not, and who has her. He takes out several people along the way. But they all deserved it. But we also see he isn’t invulnerable and can make mistakes when he is captured and they learn his identity.
To protect his daughter, he gets her out and takes her to safety. And we learn more about his background in the process as he contacts two people from his former life for some assistance. But in the end, after wrapping up the case, he can’t go back to where he is, and he and his daughter head to Maine for a new life. Which leads to the events of the next story.
As I live in Florida, I did enjoy the references to places around Tampa Bay that I’m familiar with. I know the author lives in central Florida, so he should be familiar with the area, too.
The second novel, Levon’s Night, starts with a crime scene in Costa Rica. A family is killed, maybe even tortured. And worse, this included children. The father had run a Ponzi scheme in the U.S., making off with several hundred million dollars. But the killers left behind an open safe with a couple of million in it. Did they find what they were looking for, or will more die?
Then a similar case occurs in Fiji. A Treasury agent who had met up with an FBI agent on that first case both feel it’s the same crew. This group, funded by a mysterious individual, is looking for the scammer’s motherload of money, which is probably hidden in one of his several homes, registered under other names.
Meanwhile, Levon and his daughter are living in Maine, but in an interior community as winter hits. The area has about a dozen people. But it appears that another of the scammer’s homes is there, and this group is coming. They don’t leave witnesses. But they didn’t account for someone like Levon.
Sadly, for Levon and his daughter, they will need to move on after this and get new IDs. Where will they go next?
So it looks like each story is about Cade getting pulled into matters by others, and using his skills to take care of things. But he also has a young daughter to look after and protect as well. It will be interesting to see how this series progresses. I wonder if the FBI agent and maybe the Treasury agent will re-appear in a future novel? In some ways, it’s similar to certain episodic TV shows where the hero comes to a new town, gets involved in things, and then has to move on.
One item that was interesting in both works is that in the first novel at the end of most chapters is a quote from a “Gunny Leffertz.” You’ll find out who he is in that book. In the second, this time we get excerpts from a journal Levon decides to start. I wonder if we’ll see something like this in the upcoming novels.
As I noted, there are almost a dozen novels so far. And it’s been optioned for a television series. Let’s hope it stays true to the novels. I’ll be getting the next ones soon.
