"Strong as Steel" (Forge), by Jon Land
Jon Land's insubordinate, trigger-happy Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong is back again in another action-packed thriller in "Strong as Steel."
This is the sort of thing you might get if Dr. Frankenstein sewed John Wayne's head onto Wonder Woman's body, gave the fearsome creature an unlimited supply of bullets and dropped it into "The Da Vinci Code." In the first 40 pages, the following events unfold in rapid succession:
A freighter with a crew of dead men smashes into a dock at the Turkish Port of Ordu. A bride and groom are gunned down at a drug cartel wedding in Mexico. A team of assassins wipes out the crew of a railroad train in Texas and swipes three crates from a freight car. Caitlin's lover, reformed criminal Cort Wesley Masters, single-handedly rescues a Homeland Security operative on the brink of execution in Venezuela. And Caitlin, with only her sidearm, outguns a team of professional mercenaries armed with automatic weapons and RPGs.
All of this, it turns out later, has something to do with the bubonic plague, a secret religious order that employs violence to protect the one true faith and a stone ossuary that may or may not contain the bones of Jesus Christ.
By the novel's conclusion, Land manages to pull these disparate elements together.
For the uninitiated, Caitlin is a fifth-generation Texas Ranger. As always in this series, the plot has links to an old case investigated by one of her ancestors, and the cartoonish portrayals of violence resemble what might happen if Quentin Tarantino and Marvel's creator of Venom got wasted on cocaine and put their heads together.
In addition to Caitlin and Masters, returning characters include Masters' son Dylan, Caitlin's often exasperated commander D.W. Tepper, a mysterious Homeland Security agent known only as Jones, and a former South American death squad thug who has become Caitlin's guardian angel.
Land's fans are in for another wild ride.
Bruce DeSilva, winner of the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award, is the author of the Mulligan crime novels including "The Dread Line."
Online:
https://www.jonlandbooks.com/
http://www.brucedesilva.com/
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian court on Friday ordered the detention of the country’s farm minister in the latest high-profile corruption investigation, while Kyiv security officials assessed how they can recover lost battlefield momentum in the war against Russia.
Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court ruled that Agriculture Minister Oleksandr Solskyi should be held in custody for 60 days, but he was released after paying bail of 75 million hryvnias ($1.77 million), a statement said.
Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau suspects Solskyi headed an organized crime group that between 2017 and 2021 unlawfully obtained land worth 291 million hryvnias ($6.85 million) and attempted to obtain other land worth 190 million hryvnias ($4.47 million).
Ukraine is trying to root out corruption that has long dogged the country. A dragnet over the past two years has seen Ukraine’s defense minister, top prosecutor, intelligence chief and other senior officials lose their jobs.
That has caused embarrassment and unease as Ukraine receives tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid to help fight Russia’s army, and the European Union and NATO have demanded widespread anti-graft measures before Kyiv can realize its ambition of joining the blocs.
In Ukraine's capital, doctors and ambulance crews evacuated patients from a children’s hospital on Friday after a video circulated online saying Russia planned to attack it.
Parents hefting bags of clothes, toys and food carried toddlers and led young children from the Kyiv City Children’s Hospital No. 1 on the outskirts of the city. Medics helped them into a fleet of waiting ambulances to be transported to other facilities.
In the video, a security official from Russian ally Belarus alleged that military personnel were based in the hospital. Kyiv city authorities said that the claim was “a lie and provocation.”
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that civic authorities were awaiting an assessment from security services before deciding when it was safe to reopen the hospital.
“We cannot risk the lives of our children,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold online talks Friday with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which has been the key international organization coordinating the delivery of weapons and other aid to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said late Thursday that the meeting would discuss how to turn around Ukraine’s fortunes on the battlefield. The Kremlin’s forces have gained an edge over Kyiv’s army in recent months as Ukraine grappled with a shortage of ammunition and troops.
Russia, despite sustaining high losses, has been taking control of small settlements as part of its effort to drive deeper into eastern Ukraine after capturing the city of Avdiivka in February, the U.K. defense ministry said Friday.
It’s been slow going for the Kremlin’s troops in eastern Ukraine and is likely to stay that way, according to the Institute for the Study of War. However, the key hilltop town of Chasiv Yar is vulnerable to the Russian onslaught, which is using glide bombs — powerful Soviet-era weapons that were originally unguided but have been retrofitted with a navigational targeting system — that obliterate targets.
“Russian forces do pose a credible threat of seizing Chasiv Yar, although they may not be able to do so rapidly,” the Washington-based think tank said late Thursday.
It added that Russian commanders are likely seeking to advance as much as possible before the arrival in the coming weeks and months of new U.S. military aid, which was held up for six months by political differences in Congress.
While that U.S. help wasn’t forthcoming, Ukraine’s European partners didn’t pick up the slack, according to German’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracks Ukraine support.
“The European aid in recent months is nowhere near enough to fill the gap left by the lack of U.S. assistance, particularly in the area of ammunition and artillery shells,” it said in a report Thursday.
Ukraine is making a broad effort to take back the initiative in the war after more than two years of fighting. It plans to manufacture more of its own weapons in the future, and is clamping down on young people avoiding conscription, though it will take time to process and train any new recruits.
Jill Lawless contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Ukrainian young acting student Gleb Batonskiy plays piano in a public park in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
