Murder at the CDC
by Jon Land
February 14 – March 11, 2022 Virtual Book Tour
Hi, everyone!
Today is my turn on the Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tour and I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for Margaret Truman’s MURDER AT THE CDC (A Capital Crimes Novel Book #32) by Jon Land.
Below you will find a book description, my book review an excerpt from the book, the author’s bio and social media links and a Rafflecopter giveaway. Enjoy!
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Book Description
2017: A military transport on a secret run to dispose of its deadly contents vanishes without a trace.
The present: A mass shooting on the steps of the Capitol nearly claims the life of Robert Brixton’s grandson.
No stranger to high-stakes investigations, Brixton embarks on a trail to uncover the motive behind the shooting. On the way he finds himself probing the attempted murder of the daughter his best friend, who works at the Washington offices of the CDC. The connection between the mass shooting and Alexandra’s poisoning lies in that long-lost military transport that has been recovered by forces determined to change America forever. Those forces are led by radical separatist leader Deacon Frank Wilhyte, whose goal is nothing short of bringing on a second Civil War.
Brixton joins forces with Kelly Lofton, a former Baltimore homicide detective. She has her own reasons for wanting to find the truth behind the shooting on the Capitol steps, and is the only person with the direct knowledge Brixton needs. But chasing the truth places them in the cross-hairs of both Wilhyte’s legions and his Washington enablers.
Murder at the CDC
Genre: Political Thriller
Published by: Forge
Publication Date: February 15, 2022
Number of Pages: 304
ISBN: 978-1250238894
Series: Margaret Truman’s Capital Crimes, #32 | Each is a stand alone work.
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My Book Review
RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars
MURDER AT THE CDC (A Capital Crimes Novel Book #32) by Jon Land is the latest political/crime thriller in this long running series started by Margaret Truman. This is the second book in the series that Jon Land has written, and he does a great job of giving the reader continuity with the previous books. It is an exciting crime/political thriller filled with “what-ifs” extrapolated from today’s headlines. These books can all be easily read as standalone novels.
Robert Brixton comes close once again to losing a loved one when his grandson in caught up in a mass shooting incident on the Capital’s steps. As he begins to investigate the motive for the shooting, he is also asked by his long-time friend to meet with his daughter who works for the CDC in their Washington office who he believes is in trouble. She ends up in the hospital fighting for her life from an unknown poison.
Brixton joins forces with Kelly Lofton who works for the Capital police and the two discover a scheme to change America forever with a bioweapon believed lost on a long-ago military transport.
I love these types of thrillers when they are well written as this one is. They are just plausible enough to be scarily believable and thank goodness there is always someone of principle to stand in the way of all the evil doers. Fast paced, action packed and full of twists, I could not put the book down. All the characters, good and bad, were well drawn. There are a very few times the pace slows down a bit, but the information given at these times is interesting and adds to the escalating consequences of the protagonists not saving the day.
I really enjoy reading Mr. Land’s additions to this series, and I am looking forward to reading many more in the future.
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Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
“The hand of God is upon You! He is my shepherd and I shall not want!”
Those were the last words high school sophomore Ben McDonald heard before the shooting started. He and the other students clustered around him from the Gilman School in Maryland were on a school field trip to the Capitol Building from their Baltimore prep school, the first such trip taken since academic life returned to a degree of normalcy following the endless coronavirus nightmare. Everyone had shown up in their school uniforms, the buses had left on schedule, and the students felt like pioneers, explorers blazing a trail back into the world beyond shutdowns and social distancing.
The reduction in Capitol tour group size was still in force and had necessitated the two bus-loads of students to be divided into five groups of fifteen, give or take, three chaperones allotted to each. Ben and his twin brother Robbie’s group had gone first and they had found themselves lingering on the Capitol steps, taking pictures and chatting away with their local congressman and senator who’d come out to greet and mingle with the students on the steps at the building’s east front.
“Why are you still wearing a mask?” one of them had asked the congressman, but Ben had already forgotten the answer.
He remembered checking the time on his phone just before he heard the first shots. Ben thought they were firecrackers at first, realizing the truth a breath later when the screams began and bodies started flying.
“I am doing the Lord’s work! I am a sacrifice to his word!”
Somehow Ben gleaned those words through the screams and incessant hail of fire. The shots were coming so fast he wasn’t sure if the shooter was firing on semi or full auto. The boy never actually saw him as more than a shape amid the blur before him, enveloping his vision like a dull haze. The thin sheer curtain drawn over his eyes didn’t keep him from recording bodies crumpling, keeling over, tumbling down the steps. The force of a bullet’s momentum slammed a classmate into him, sparing Ben the ensuing fusillade that turned the other boy’s back into a pin cushion.
My brother!
The panic and shock of those initial seconds had stolen thought of Robbie from him. He wheeled about, covered in the blood of boy who had dropped off the scene.
“Robbie!”
Did he cry out his name or only think it? The steps around him looked blanketed in khaki and blue, pants and blazers that made up his Gilman uniform. The sound of gunfire continued to resound in his ears, but he wasn’t sure the shooter was still firing because no more bodies seemed to be falling. People were running in all directions, crying and screaming, Ben remaining frozen out of fear for his brother.
“Robbie!”
He saw his brother’s sandy blond hair draped down from one of the marble steps onto another. Nothing else at first, just the hair. Maybe he had dove atop a friend who’d been wounded to spare that kid more fire—that was Robbie. But there was no one beneath Him, and . . . And . . .
He wasn’t moving, his arms stretched to the sides on angles that looked all wrong. Ben dropped to his knees next to Robbie, his pants sinking into pooling patches of blood which merged and thickened beneath him. He felt something pinching him along right side of his ribcage and saw his blue shirt darkening with a spreading wave of red in the last moment before he collapsed next to his brother.
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Author Bio
JON LAND is the USA Today bestselling author of fifty-eight books, including eleven in the critically acclaimed Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong series, the most recent of which, Strong from the Heart, won the 2020 American Fiction Award for Best Thriller and the 2020 American Book Fest Award for Best Mystery/Suspense Novel. Additionally, he has teamed up with Heather Graham for a science fiction series that began with THE RISING (winner of the 2017 International Book Award for best Sci-fi Novel) and continues with BLOOD MOON, to be published in November of 2022. He has also written six books in the Murder, She Wrote series of mysteries and has more recently taken over Margaret Truman’s Capital Crimes series, with his second effort, MURDER AT THE CDC, to be published in February of 2022. Jon is known as well for writing the film DIRTY DEEDS, a teen comedy starring Milo Ventimiglia and Zoe Saldana, which was released in 2005. A graduate of Brown University, he received the 2019 Rhode Island Authors Legacy Award for his lifetime of literary achievements.
Social Media Links
JonLandBooks.com
Goodreads
BookBub – @JonLand2
Twitter – @JonDLand
Facebook – @JonLandAuthor
Purchase Links
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RAFFLECOPTER GIVEAWAY
https://kingsumo.com/g/isv9i5/murder-at-the-cdc-by-jon-land
Thanks for the fantastic review! I knew this was going to be a good one as soon as I read the title!
You are welcome, Wendy!
What a wonderful review. I know that the CDC is in our headlines so much for the past couple of years, and this sounds very relevant.
Thank you, Wendy!
Thanks for the wonderful review! You did a great job highlighting the book’s most important takeaways and really captured the frantic pace at which it moves. Can’t thank you enough and already looking forward to your thoughts on my next one! Jon
You are very welcome! Looking forward to more from you.