Ever since I read the first Margaret "Murder" book, I've been a fan. Murder at the CDC is the 32nd book in this series. Jon Land has maintained the "feel" of Truman's earlier books, making this fan very happy. As we return to Capitol Hill, we join the drama and turmoil that is part of everyday life. A mass shooting will pull Robert Brixton into this conflict while the attempted murder of his friend's daughter will connect the incidents to the CDC and a missing plane. These books are known for their clues and blind alleys that cause readers to change their guess on "who done it" with each chapter. I'd recommend them to anyone looking for some good mysteries that don't move into blood and guts on the second page.

Five years ago, Robert Brixton witnessed the death of his daughter when a suicide bomber detonated a bomb inside a small café. He’s never going to recover from it. He used to work for a government agency, now is a private investigator for high level crimes. When riding the Metro, the D.C. version of a subway, he notices a young woman acting oddly. Seemingly spooked because he noticed her, she attempts to move from one car to the next, a dangerous feat in any circumstances. As a suicide bomber, changing cars on a moving train isn’t the most dangerous thing she can do.

In Israel, families enjoying a day at the beach are attacked by three armed drones. With nowhere to run, there’s no escape.

Seemingly unrelated events all tie together to put the United States in jeopardy, threatening not only lives but a way of life. Can a handful of people save millions? Brixton hopes so—since he’s one of the handful.

Jon Land kicks Margaret Truman’s Capitol Crimes series into high gear with a page-turning, hold your breath, breakneck speed. To tell more would give away key points of the plot and readers will appreciate sorting clues from red herrings for themselves. While some parts of the tale are reminders of recent events, readers will be glad the rest is fiction. The alternative is too frightening to contemplate.

Washington D.C. is a character itself as Land adds details, putting readers right into the action. The main thing to remember is, in D.C. you can never be sure what’s true, what’s a lie, and who to trust.

Land also writes the Caitlyn Strong thriller series, eleven books so far, and six books in the Murder She Wrote series, many reviewed here. Land says Brixton will be back next year in Murder at the CDC.

Jon Land continued Margaret Truman's popular Capital Crimes series with the thrilling Margaret Truman's Murder on the Metro, and now delivers its thirty-second episode, Margaret Truman's Murder at the CDC.

There's a mass shooting at the Capitol, and a CDC scientist is poisoned. PI Robert Brixton investigates along with former Baltimore homicide detective Kelly Lofton.

At the center of this thriller is a 2017 military transport that disappeared between Utah and Oregon and was never found. Its tanker carried White Death, capable of killing hundreds of millions.

The the villain of the piece is a radical nutjob who plans to start a second Civil War and has connections in high places.

As we expect, Robert and Kelly save the day, and are offered jobs with a very secretive organization - will one or both accept?

I began reading Margaret Truman Capital Crimes books when the series first began in 1980. They were well written, clean, and gave a great insight into the events and buildings of our nation's capital. John Lan has recently continued this series with 2 books.

This novel had an interesting and timely focus with a lethal gas that could kill millions of people and involvement by a sitting senator. It also focuses on armed groups focused on changing the current trends. The story begins with a mass shooting on the steps of the Capitol with 3 characters, Kelly Loftus, Robert Brixton, and Max, all connected to law enforcement and also having connections to the shooting.

Overall Lan did a good job of replicating Truman's style of writing and keeping the focus on Washington DC. There were quite a few characters; and at the beginning, it was difficult to keep them straight. There were also a few obscenities. But overall an enjoyable suspense read.

In the book Murder at the CDC, author Jon Land has continued and updated Margaret Truman’s Capital Crimes series. What does the 2017 disappearance of a military transport on a secret run, a mass shooting on the steps of the Capital and a poisoning at the CDC have in common? That is what Robert Brixton is trying to find out as he joins Capital Hill police officer Kelly Lofton on a crazy ride to find the truth.
I would highly recommend this book. I received a copy of this e-book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) provided by the Author and Publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

"Murder at the CDC" has a wonderful mystery plot with shades of current events woven throughout. It also has a lot of unnecessary verbiage, so skim and skip reading are highly recommended. I loved the characters, but their inner dialogue was just plain boring. This would have been a better mystery book without a lot of it.

In 2017 a military transport tanker filled with a deadly toxin goes missing on its' route from Utah to Oregon and is never seen again. With the reopening of life after COVID, tours at the Capital are resuming and a group of boys from a private high school are there for a tour when a gunman opens fire. Robert Brixton's grandson is one of the boys on the Capital steps. Mackenzie Smith is contacted by a young woman, Alexandra, claiming to be his daughter. She has a situation where she works at the CDC. Then she is mysteriously poisoned and is near death.

Kelly Loftus left the Baltimore Police Department, not by her choice, and is now a part of the Protective Services Detail of the Capital Police. She misses her former investigative work as a homicide detective, but not the Blue Wall that led her to the Capital Police. The aftermath of the shooting has given her a reason to investigate on her own and she joins forces with Robert Braxton, an international private detective with a black ops background, to find out how all these seemingly unrelated events are indeed frightenedly related.

Brought to you by OBS Reviewer Jeanie

Events in this volatile, totally unpredictable thriller could almost be ripped from today’s headlines. It is a fast-paced and riveting read that I enjoyed from beginning to end. Some scenes were edge-of-the seat frightening, but what truly scared me is how it could really happen. I am relatively new to this series and found sufficient background on people and events to be comfortable with Robert Brixton and Mac Smith. These and other characters are three-dimensional, and descriptions of their surroundings at any given time drew me further into the action.

Robert Brixton is an international private investigator who now works primarily for the legal firm of best friend Mac Smith, one of DC’s finest criminal attorneys. He has many years of experience in highly classified areas of government and a strong sense of justice, especially when it comes to his friends.

Mac learns he has a twenty-five-year-old daughter after her mother passed away and she found his name in her mother’s documents. His first wife and only child were killed in a car accident years earlier, so learning about and meeting Alexandra was especially amazing. Mac asked Brixton to meet Alexandra and give his honest thoughts about her. He is concerned, also, as she seemed troubled about something.

They meet for a late lunch and Brixton is convinced that Alexandra is the real thing. She resembles Mac, right down to the same unusual eye color. She works at the DC office of the CDC, mostly answering congressional requests for information. She mentioned concerns about a call she received recently that was so crazy it could be true and, if so, it terrified her. Confidentiality keeps her from giving specifics, so he suggested how she could proceed. Alexandra now calls her dad’s best friend Uncle Robert.

While they were at lunch, a shooter opened fire at the steps of the Capitol building where students on a tour from an area high school were. In less than a minute, seventeen people died, seven of them students. Another student died shortly afterwards, and many were injured. Brixton had missed calls from his daughter Margo; her son Max was with the school group at the Capitol and didn’t answer his phone. Brixton had lost one daughter to a terrorist bombing in DC. He ran to the Capitol, afraid of losing his grandson, too.

Kelly, a Capitol Police officer working a protection detail, was leaving after the all-clear was given. She sat on an outdoor bench for a few minutes. The woman on the bench was talking to herself, including “I could have stopped it and didn’t.” Kelly turned to help an officer break up a situation that was heating up; when she turned back, the woman was gone. She had dropped many papers from her purse, so Kelly collected and took them home rather than to her boss, wanting to follow up on what she finds.

The following day, Mac was contacted by Walter Reed Hospital. Alexandra was there, unconscious. She had been meeting with her supervisor when they both took ill. Her supervisor didn’t make it. They had been poisoned and doctors could not determine the toxin so they could treat her. It was eerily reminiscent of the recent deaths of seven boys at a Baltimore high school, where the cause was undetermined.

Characters are described primarily through dialog, actions, and pertinent backstory. We also get to know the bad guys, a little at a time. I appreciated how new acquaintances Robert and Kelly worked in concert to put together seemingly unrelated events with valuable help from one of Robert’s old contacts. I found the descriptions of the past secret government positions held by Brixton and others to be interesting, including how they coped with their duties.

Robert had stated: “Sometimes you don’t know how far you’ve fallen until you can’t look up and see the light anymore.” Some people in this thriller, like him, could rise above how far they had fallen, others couldn’t, or wouldn’t. I was saddened by how some of those who enacted violence on others had once been victims themselves. Despite having met some of the bad guys, there is still an explosive, surprising resolution! The end is as satisfactory as the rest of the novel. I absolutely enjoyed this thriller from beginning to end and highly recommend it!

We start with a shooting on the steps of the capital and a private investigator and officer with protective services try to work out why it happened. With a lot of moving pieces and twists along the way, this is a great political thriller. What I like about this series is there are some core characters that are in danger and the state of the free world is at stake and you know the majority of the characters and world will survive, but the journey is still good.

We start off knowing there is danger and then as the plot progresses, the pace and the danger increase and the investigation turns into a cat and mouse game.

I enjoyed this installment and while I have read some but not all of the series. This can be read as a stand alone.

If you like fast paced political thrillers, you should pick this one up.

Thank you to NetGalley and Forge Books for this ARC. I am leaving this review voluntarily. Holy cow! This book will give you nightmares! The book begins with the mysterious disappearance of a military vehicle transporting dangerous bioweapons. Fast forward to the present and a lone gunman sprays bullets into a crowd of students on the Capitol steps where a Senator is also present. One of the surviving students is the grandson of Robert Brixton. Kelly Loftus is a Capitol police officer who feels there is a lot more to the story of the shooting. She decides to do a little investigating of her own after she ends up with some very juicy evidence. Brixton and Loftus end up paired up trying to fight against an invisible monster and a mighty powerful network of individuals who can cause evidence and people to disappear. This was a full, action-packed novel of corruption, conspiracy, greed and devaluation of human life. I know this is a fictional story, but it will truly make you shiver. You will find yourself cheering for some of the characters in the book, and you will find yourself wanting to throttle some others! It is fast-paced and full of mystery. As far as thrillers go, this one will top the charts. You will be fully absorbed into the story from the first page. Forget about sleep because you will not want to put this one down, and it actually may give you nightmares!

What does a missing truck of poison from years ago have to do with a shooter killing children on a school trip to the capital years later? Bill Brixton is back and on the hunt after his grandson is almost killed and a friends daughter is poisoned. Bill must put the pieces together before more deaths occur and with the help of Kelly Lofton an ex homicide detective and capital police officer, and a few of his friends the adventure begins.
This book grabs you from the beginning and keeps you reading . Filled with non stop action and suspense you can't help but get caught in the hunt.

I haven’t read a book in this series for years and I’m so happy to be back in the fold after reading this book.. Jon Land has done a masterful job keeping the spirit of Margaret Truman alive. This story caught me from the start and it was difficult to pull myself away. It was frightening to get into the mind of the crazies but it was satisfying to see them fall…hard. Good ending.

I’ve been a long time fan of Jon Land, so going back into one of his books is a fantastic ride.
Robert Brixton is back to solve a problem that hits close to home.
Jon Land brings his A game once again in a taut, edge of your seat thriller that is hard to put down.
The author tests our heroes in quite a number of ways. With personal stakes and more broad reaching ones.
This book started out strong and didn’t let up. It was a great ride from start to finish.
I eagerly look forward to the next installment.

I was excited to see this book in the list. I had read several of the original books written by Margaret Truman years ago, but had not read any of the ones written by Donald Bain. I waited to read this until I could borrow the previous story, Murder on the Metro, so that I could get reintroduced to the characters and story. Jon Land has done a great job continuing the series in the manner of Ms. Truman. The story was current, kept me guessing, and was just an overall pleasure to read. I look forward to reading more from Mr. Land as they come out. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read Murder at the CDC early.

terrorism, black-ops, family-dynamics, friendship, private-investigators, PTSD, feds, law-enforcement, Washington DC, murder, murder-investigation, suspense, thriller*****

Very interesting characters on both sides of the law and in between. Main white knights are the well-seasoned veteran of several government agencies (Robert Brixton), a former marine and ex homicide cop who got a bad rap for being female and black (Kelly Loftus), a DC lawyer (Mac Smith) with some interesting connections. The dark forces are a US senator, a far wing zealot and his followers, and a lost shipment of toxic chemicals. Toss in a poisoning of high school students and a mass shooting on the steps of the capitol building and you have an idea about this fast-paced riveting read!
Loved it!
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Macmillan-Tor/Forge, Forge Books via NetGalley. Thank you!

Jon Land’s second outing writing for Margaret Truman’s murder in Washington series is great follow-up to his “Murder in the Metro.” “Murder at the CDC” is almost a ripped from the headlines story about a tank of poison that goes missing five years earlier and is found by rogue elements within the US government who plan to use it in an attack.

The story is a little slow at some junctures and has some side stories that don’t contribute a lot to the primary storyline but overall a fun read!

Ripped straight from the headlines seat of your pants thriller. A fast paced story that absorbs the reader.

Murder and intrigue on the steps of the United States capital building pulls Robert Brixton into his most personal case yet, in Margaret Truman's Murder at the CDC. I love the Capitol Crimes Series and I am so happy that they are being continued. This one was fast paced, full of twists and turns and kept me guessing until the end. Hoping for more! Thank you NetGalley for the advanced readers copy for review.

A genuine thriller that really continues the work of the late Margaret Truman. I am so glad that the new writer has followed her trajectory with this interesting story.

Mac has discovered a daughter and she is almost killed by the unleashing of a deadly chemical attack. At the same time, children visiting the capitol are randomly shot, while a group of high school students were mysteriously poisoned.

Mac and his friend, the dangerous Robert Brixton, become involved with investigator Kelly Loftus to stop an exceedingly dangerous plot. I had to smile when the progenitor of the evil Deacon Frank was named Rand. So timely, that it involves a sitting Senator in the evil mix.

Job well done! Thank you Netgalley for this fast paced read.

I was so happy to get an advance copy of Margaret Truman's Murder at the CDC. The story is excellent, the characters are solid, and the mystery kept me guessing. Who doesn't love a book with poison and murder? Murder at the CDC is fast-paced and kept my interest throughout the book.

An Exhausting Ride…
As ever, expect an exhausting ride in this, the thirty first novel in the Capitol Crimes series, which brings Robert Brixton into a case that turns personal. With fast moving action from the off, an excellent narrative and a superb plot populated with a credible cast. A very worthy addition.