When the Killing Starts (Paperback)

This gripping crime thriller pits “the most savvy cop currently in the genre” and his police dog against a band of mercenaries (Library Journal). Reid Bennett, police chief of tiny Murphy’s Harbour in Canada, is looking forward to a month’s vacation. He plans to spend time with his girlfriend, Freda, and he might even get to go fishing with his dog, Sam. But then Norma Michaels, the wife of a rich businessman, turns up with a $25,000 offer: Find her twenty‑year‑old son, Jason. He has run off with some mercenaries to train for overseas service and she is afraid she has lost him forever. Even though he is of age, she wants him found, and she will pay handsomely. The mercenaries call themselves Freedom for Hire, and their leader is a cashiered sergeant from the British paratroopers who now styles himself Colonel George Dunphy. He was court‑martialed for brutality, forced out of the service, and stands ready to brutalize a bunch of young men while stealing their pay. Since people like Dunphy annoy Reid, he decides to take the job—despite the minor risk of a few ex‑SAS men with automatic weapons—but he is more worried that the boy will not want to come home when he is found. There are lots of questions to be answered when he and his German shepherd head north on the hunt for a few good (or maybe bad) men.