Morgan and Bonnie are former police partners, now married and retired from the force, and running a private detective agency in Montana. Having established a reputation, they become embroiled in a bitter series of attacks, the fallout from the arrests of two criminal and dimwitted local brothers with burgeoning connections to white supremacy and a reputation for violence. Things quickly escalate when they’re blasted with shotguns driving home from a family party, attacked by the brothers as revenge for involvement in their arrests. Simultaneously, we hear snippets from the headquarters of the group known as the White Order, and their own take on the developing conflict. The White Order, it turns out, are a big deal, significant enough to set alarm bells ringing when they’re name is looked up on government databases. Inevitably, things descend into the kind of intimidating chaos for the two lead characters that transcends their own lives and becomes wide reaching and potentially damaging to the community and further afield, with the damaged pair playing the star role.
In some ways, Lawrence Ricketts’ SILENT PARTNERS is a little cliched: the staunch and heroic lead characters, the secretive and threatening enemy, the brain-dead henchmen who giveaway key things at key moments, and even the nasty inside man. That said, the characters in Ricketts’ story are well developed, with Morgan and Bonnie feeling eminently believable, loved up, and capable without the almost invincible feel of some hero characters. With short, sharp chapters, the text barrels along in easy-reading style, slipping between different angles on the same story and slowly unveiling its key aspects to the reader as it flows. There’s a familiarity, but also an excitement that builds from the high volume of action and the rapidly short-but-sweet insights. While the story doesn’t stand head and shoulder above other similar crime dramas, it’s certainly one that matches them in its hardy, accessible and believable take on the genre and its clever small-town feel. Readers could certainly soak up a little more of Morgan and Bonnie.
A fast-paced and charismatic crime thriller put together in bite-sized chapters, and full of smart character development, SILENT PARTNERS is a neat if occasionally obvious addition to a crowded genre.
~James Hendicott for IndieReader