On Jim Doherty's recommendation, I read FREEDOM TO KILL. (See
his comments below.) Early on, I was disappointed. Despite an
interesting bank robbery that starts the story and
establishes the persona of the protagonist, the book seemed
more thriller than mystery, and the megalomaniacal would-be
terrorist (of 1997) pales by comparison with current events.
The writing is compentent, the portrayal of FBI culture is
convincing, and it came well recommended, however, so I
persevered, and the book turned into an exciting, twisting
chase. Much of that chase is tracking down and comparing
phone records, airplane schedules, and military school
dropouts, which could be tedious, but in a neat application
of symbiosis Lindsay has Devlin adopt a headquarters computer
jockey with MS who breezes through the grunt work and in turn
grows as an FBI professional and as a person. There is a
parallel plot of why Devlin takes on so many risks, and his
coworkers and wife are well drawn. Besides personality
profiling, this book also describes the currently popular
geographical profiling, although not labeled as such.
Joy, having enjoyed Kris Nelscott's noir 1968 books, now
proceeding to Peace's 1974
The first three books feature Mike Devlin, a Chicagoan
working as a "brick agent" (a street-level investigator) in
the Bureau's Detroit field office
(where Lindsay himself was stationed for many years). Lindsay
was something of a specialist in serial killer cases, and all
of the Devlin books pit Devlin against some sort of serial
killer. . . . And my favorite of the trilogy, FREEDOM TO
KILL, features a villain who uses modern-day technology to
commit serial murders on a massive scale, sort of a Unabomber
on steroids. Throughout the Devlin books, the hero rails
against the
"bureaucratization" of the FBI, the back-stabbing "careerism"
of management-level agents, and an agency culture that cares
more about avoiding failure than actually solving crimes.
Devlin emerges as what one critic calls "an FBI poster child
for insubordination."
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