Night on Fire

Black market missiles and warring bikers mix dangerously with a teenage boy's medical emergency and a troubling, out-of-the-past romance in Deverell's solid second Casey Collins novel (after 12 Drummers Drumming). A U.S. Foreign Service counter-terrorism officer on assignment in Denmark, Casey is about to leave for Bangor, Maine, to help investigate a passenger plane disaster in which more than 400 people died. But she's detained by the local police when the body of a dead biker is found in her apartment. The victim was a member of a gang called the Bandidos, and when Casey's partner, Gerry Davis, is gunned down in a shoot-out between the Bandidos and the Danish Hell's Angels, Casey realizes it's no coincidence. The case she and Gerry were working on--the search for black market Stingers--involves the gangs in a convoluted conspiracy she must unravel. This takes priority over even the possibility that terrorists caused the Bangor airplane explosion, but Casey's sleuthing is complicated by a number of people whose paths cross hers, each of them unpredictable and with their own agendas, which send the reader to France, Thailand, Washington, D.C., and all over Eastern Europe. Along for the international ride are Andrew Markham, Casey's former (now married) boyfriend, who specifically requested the post as Gerry Davis's assistant; Casey's security officer, Bella Hinton, who's searching for the father of her sick son, Woody, who desperately needs a bone marrow transplant; an aggressive FBI agent; a British biker expert; and a Danish informant. The engaging narrative is an adroit blend of soap opera and action-adventure, with the human relationships sharing center stage with the gripping mystery and the wily plot twists. Thanks to sharp storytelling, the intertwining subplots feed seamlessly into the main plot line, and Deverell's fine-tuned first-person narration showcases Casey's intelligence and emotional heft to equally involving effect. Agent, Nancy Yost. (July) FYI: Deverell is a former U.S. Foreign Service officer.