Andrew Klavan just published the sixth book in his Cameron Winter series, Find Me Nowhere, and it is the best yet. Winter is an ex-covert ops assassin who is now a professor of romantic poetry at a small liberal arts college. He was trained by The Recruiter, a born-again Christian who constantly berates Winter over his agnosticism – in hilarious terms:
“I don’t want to take you away from your life, Poetry Boy, or to take your life away from you, if it comes to that. After all, it’s a semi-admirable, if largely futile, existence you’ve carved out for yourself—desperately trying to edify America’s imbecile youth with great poetry. Who knows? It might even do them some good. I wouldn’t want to interfere. That said, God still loves the America he made. He still wants it to be protected from the agents of hell and other foreign countries. And in spite of the fact your soul is curdled with unbelief and already starting to smell of the burning sulfur that will soon engulf it for all of timeless eternity, he is calling on you to do the job.”
In all the years he had known the Recruiter, Winter had never been sure at any given moment whether his chief was joking with him or being entirely serious or some impossible mixture of both.
Winters has developed from a relatively insecure and self-centered character into a mature and self-confident man. A big part of his maturation is his relationship with Gwendolyn Lord, the therapist whom we first met in the third book, The House of Love and Death. They both know that they are “made for each other”, and marriage is inevitable.
Meanwhile, as his relationship with Gwendolyn gets more serious, his need for therapy is less. His therapist, Margaret Whitaker (an older woman), has fallen desperately in love with Cameron, but she has the sense to keep her feelings to herself. She realizes she has accomplished her mission, and Winter is now able to take care of himself. She has been his confessor, if you will – the person to whom he feels safe unburdening himself as he tells her of the missions he carried out, usually with lethal consequences. There is a bittersweet scene when they both realize that he will no longer be seeing her.
Find Me Nowhere begins with a firefight in Afghanistan, and two American GIs are pinned down in an ambush. “Dooby”, and laid-back surfer dude, and Geoff Tubman are caught in the crossfire, and Tubman, always spoiling for a fight, takes off towards the cave where the enemy is shooting at them. He disappears inside, and Dooby, cursing, takes off after him to rescue him. When he gets inside the cave, he is caught in an explosion, and barely gets out alive.
Years later, Geoff Tubman’s father is murdered in the small Pennsylvania town of Kinnecombe. The Recruiter shows up and tells Winter he must find out who killed Ken Tubman, and why. When Winter goes to Kinnecombe, he is immediately harassed and threatened by a gang of local toughs. This gets his interest, and, like a dog with a bone, he won’t let go of his investigation. Every time he returns to Kinnecombe, he barely escapes with his life, but he gradually uncovers a criminal enterprise involving arms deals to America’s enemies, drug smuggling, and deep state shenanigans.
To read the rest of my review, click here.
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