The Recruit

A Novel

By: Alen Drew

Random House Publishing Group

Random House, Random House

Publish Date 14 June 2022

Mystery & Thriller

#TheRecruit#NetGalley

100 Book ReviewsProfessional Reader

I would like to first thank both NetGalley and Random Publishing for letting me read and review this book.

Good Reads Synopsis:

A series of murders and mysterious hate crimes rocks a quiet California town, leading a cunning detective into the crosshairs of a network of white supremacists in this can’t-put-it-down thriller.

Rancho Santa Elena in 1987 is the ideal Southern California town—that is, until a series of strange crimes threaten to destroy its social fabric. The body of a dog is left outside a Vietnamese grocery store. An encampment of Mexican strawberry pickers is savagely attacked with mysterious weapons. A wealthy real estate developer is found dead in the pool of his beachside house. When rat poison and red threads are found at these crime scenes, detective Benjamin Wade and his girlfriend, forensic expert Natasha Betencourt, begin to wonder if these brutal crimes are connected.

Soon Ben suspects that a gang of young locals, part of a vicious underbelly in town, might be the perpetrators of the​se crime​s. As Ben closes in on identifying the gang’s latest recruit, he discovers evidence that links the gang to a much wider terror network, one which uses the newly developed internet to lure young men to their hateful ideology and to plan attacks. And while he digs deeper into the investigation, Ben must confront his own realizations about himself, and his membership in a community where corruption and hate are wielded as weapons against his fellow citizens.

Book Review:

I so wanted to love this book because it sounds so good. After three weeks and only 34% through I knew it was time to call it. I gave this book 1 stars and DNF’D it.

The story line is good and is a story that needs to be told but it just wasn’t for me. There are a few things I just couldn’t get pass and struggled with that.

I need to give you warnings about racism, adultery, and animal cruelty. I can handle most of it, but the animal cruelty just did me in.

As I said before this is a story that’s needs to be told because it goes into the thinking and making of people like this. I didn’t realize how these groups got people and now I have a better understanding.

I do want to try more of works to give him another try because once I picked up the book, I was involved it was getting the desire to pick it up.

From the Acknowledgments: “…the aftermath of the Vietnam War sparked a new white supremacy movement, one that coalesced in the 1980s around the fledgling internet and ultimately found legitimacy as a main stream political movement in the presidency of Donald Trump.”

This is the second book in a series. I did not read the first book, but the subject matter in the two books is completely different, and this book works fine as a standalone. In 1987, the police in a small California town are faced with several seemingly unrelated incidents - a poisoned child, a murdered real estate developer, a dead dog behind a Vietnamese grocery. But when detective Ben Wade and his pathologist girlfriend Natasha Betencourt look closer, they find the links, and once they see them it is obvious that hatred is all around them.

Although this book is set in the 1980s the setting could be today. However, in the 1980s the use of the internet by white supremacist groups was just beginning. This book describes those early uses and how a group of mediocre white men bolster their self importance by proclaiming their superiority over everyone else on earth. They groom an insecure teenager through flattery, fake empathy and outrageous theories until he is willing to kill in furtherance of their cause. These are extremely dangerous people. This is a good police procedural with a very serious theme. It took me a while to get into the book because the early chapters skipped around among the characters so much. I liked the detective and may go back and read the first book in the series.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

WOWZA

First off, If Alan Drew is not on your radar, he needs to be. This is the second book in the Detective Ben Wade series and although I felt this book worked beautifully as a stand-alone, why not go back and read Shadow Man. So very good!!

Hate Crimes are horrific. The book begins with the discovery of the body of a dog outside of a Vietnamese grocery store, and the horrors go on from there. Migrant Mexican strawberry pickers are brutalized, and a wealthy man is found dead in his pool. Are these crimes related? This is the question that Detective Ben Wade and Forensic expert Natasha Betencour must answer.

White supremacists and the vulnerable youth it attracts are portrayed in this book. This is a gritty, gruesome, and intense book that looks at hate, brutality and how some are courted and recruited into a world of hate.

This book is so good but won’t be for everyone. The author shows the ugliness of hate. He does not sugarcoat anything. Whew!

This was a compelling, thought provoking and brutal book. I enjoyed being reacquainted with Ben and Natasha. They are a great couple, and I enjoyed the investigation.

Well written and powerful.

#TheRecruit #NetGalley.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

I really enjoyed this book. I didn't know it was the second in a series until I was halfway through it but I didn't feel like I needed to read the first one to fully grasp what was going on. This is a character driven, police procedural novel about racial tensions and white supremacy in Southern California in the 1980's. Well written and well paced. Highly recommended

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for an advanced reader copy.

This is a very timely book even though the setting of the book takes place in 1987. There are multiple plot lines that all converge during the story. The author shows how racism spreads through the town and how each character plays a role. I think the author did a great job with character development and his ability to make it all come together in the end. Excellent book and looking forward to the next one!

The Recruit is not an easy book to read. A dark look into white supremacy in the 1980’s, Drew doesn’t sugarcoat, but opens our eyes to the grimiest of the grimy. A police procedural set before the great advancement of technology, Drew writes of topics that are still relevant today. Ben and Natasha are well drawn, flawed characters and worth rooting for! At 430 pages, the ending still seemed a bit rushed. A tough subject, but Drew takes you on journey you won’t soon forget.

This is a novel about the recruitment of an angry young man into a white supremacy type church group.
It is written around the views of that young man, his neighbor, a detective and a church leader.
It is a great story, compelling and frightening . It is not a documentary, but rather a well written novel that integrates all of the characters views into an investigation involving murder.
Enjoyed this one, but it is sad how much of this is accurate about the youth of America today.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for allowing me this ARC.

Set in Rancho Santa Elena, to the south of LA, during the eighties, this story is a murder mystery but, the brutal crimes against both animals and people are almost secondary to the motives. It is adult subject matter with a timely and relevant topic.
History usually means decades ago to me, not in my lifetime however; this is a part of the history of my country I knew little about. It was not easy to read, reading about hatred is uncomfortable.
The chapters alternated between characters and pieces of the disgusting crimes. Way back when the internet was a fairly new technology, "The Reverend" decides to use it as communication of secret messages for his followers living all over the US. They are promoting the creation of an Edenic Adamic Israelite Colony.
Detective Benjamin Wade moved from LA to the small town for a quieter life. He has an ex-wife, Rachel, and daughter, Emma. Natasha, his girlfriend, is a medical examiner. He's investigating a man found murdered in his pool. The detective soon discovers crimes much more evil and darker than he could have imagined.
It follows a family's gut wrenching escape from South Vietnam in a helicopter trying to land on an American ship in the ocean. Bao, his wife, Ai, and Linh, his daughter escape to CA to have a better life. Natasha met the family at the refugee camp and they became fast friends. Over time they lose touch, only to cross paths again under the bleakest of tragedies.
Local city councilman, Paul Rowan, has a son Ian. He is a troubled, angry teen searching for a place to belong. He's fallen in with "The Reverend" and taken up the racial hatred mantra.
The story addresses this hatred, racial injustice, inequality and compels introspection. It left me depressed, angry and filled with sorrow for those who have suffered. It challenged me to think, it imparted knowledge. The author's story will stay with me. I have never read his books before. I would highly recommend this one and will watch for anything he writes in the future.
Thanks so much to NetGalley for this thought provoking advance digital copy of "The Recruit" by Alan Drew and to Random House. These are my honest and very personal thoughts and opinions given voluntarily.

So much happens in the first 24 hours of The Recruit; a man is murdered in his beach front home, a child and a dog are poisoned, a Vietnamese community is threatened and an angry teenaged boy builds pipe bombs in his backyard. All this seems to happen in a time warp of sorts, as it all unfolds as lazily as a slow-moving river. This is life in middle class Orange County, CA towns in 1987.
This the campfire story of The Hook, but at the next campfire another horror story is being told, and so on. Until it becomes clear this is all one horror story. This is partially the story of how domestic terrorism groups such as Christian Identity, Posse Comitatus, Sovereign Citizens and many others started in the aftermath of the Vietnam war. Only the reader realizes those domestic terrorism groups became mainstream and supported by the President of the United States and most of his supporters by 2017. Albeit under other names, such as Proud Boys or Promise Keepers.
Professional and personal partners, Detective Ben Wade of the Santa Elena PD, and Orange Co. ME Natasha Betencourt, along with Huntington Beach detective, Joseph Vanek quickly discover all these crimes are connected through the rotting underbelly of Orange Co.’s white supremacists. Cynical adults high in their mountain compounds, or in their mega-churches control teenaged boys and have them to do their bidding. This is also the beginning of the internet’s huge influence over terrorists, when the domestic terrorists were just beginning to discover the heady joys of internet bulletin boards, promising anonymity and freedom.
The first day of this crime spree might have been the best day with even more deaths, more domestics terrorism and more heartbreak following. This might be one of the best books I’ve read this year, but it will most likely be the darkest.
Natasha is the caring ME introduced in Shadow Man, still trying to offer her words of comfort to the dead, so that they have known kindness at the end, because who knows when the end is really the end. Ben Wade, is confronted with some very uncomfortable truths about himself, truths that don’t make it quite so easy to feel superior to the Supremists.
The stories of Vietnamese refugees in Orange Co. of their escapes after the Fall of Saigon and the reestablishment of their lives are fascinating and inspirational. Bao Phan, the sensitive art teacher, becomes a store owner, happy to do so because he, his wife and daughter escaped and lived. Always fighting the hatred of those with resentment toward Vietnamese refugees, or just any refugee, or just any non-white.
The The Recruit is such a powerful story, the story of the dark side of the American Dream, the antithesis of everything America is supposed to stand for. I won’t be forgetting this book.
Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC.

The Recruit demands that you pay attention. The story starts with multiple plot lines - a dead real estate developer found floating in a pool, a toddler somehow poisoned, a dissatisfied youth making pipe bombs, a dog with his throat slit behind a Vietnamese grocery store. Slowly, they come together as Detective Ben Wade begins to target a group of young white power militants.
Drew does a great job of painting 1987 Southern California. This small, middle class community doesn’t have a crime problem. In fact, people move here to escape the crime of the big cities. Ben Wade was one of those people. But still, there’s a Vietnamese sub-community that isn’t welcome by all. “This kind of thing didn’t happen until they got here.” The parallels to today are frightening.
This is the first book I’ve read that explains all the religious BS that the white militants believe make them special. It goes a long way to explaining how the vulnerable can be sucked into these beliefs.
This is a well written book that grabbed me immediately and kept me engaged. I found the characters, both major and minor alike, to be realistic and thoroughly fleshed out. It’s not the typical thriller. One by one, the main characters each have a light bulb moment of seeing the racism in their community. And of acknowledging their own complicity.
It’s the rare police procedural that I believe could make a good book club selection. This is the exception. The Author’s Note also provided the background that led to this book and gives even more meat to the story.
Warning - this is a graphic book and Drew doesn’t shy away from describing the violence, including against animals.
My thanks to Netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book.

The Recruit by Alan Drew is a thoughtful novel about the dangerous threat of white supremacy and racism in America. Most of the novel takes place in the Southern California town of Rancho Santa Elena, a “nice” community where most people feel protected from the crime and gang violence of larger cities. Local detective, Ben Wade, begins to suspect three unrelated shocking crimes -- the slaughter of a dog dumped behind a Vietnamese grocery, brutal murder of a wealthy real estate developer and vicious attack on immigrants -- are connected, and works with Detective Vanek, from Huntington Beach to uncover the truth. The investigation focused on a group of young men influenced by a national network of hate filled white supremacists who are fighting to continue living in communities where everyone is the same as them, meaning no minorities. The shocking conclusion showed how some people will choose to be martyrs over living in a town with minorities. Even worse, the story revealed how many citizens do not understand or even recognize the more subtle aspects of racism that frequently impacts minorities.

The longshoreman-philosopher, Eric Hoffer, some years ago wrote a book called "The True Believer." In it he posits that fanatics are all alike; that the different flavors of fanaticism are almost chance. A true believer, a fanatic, for whatever personal inadequacies, needs something bigger than her/himself in which to believe, and belonging to this cause gives him/her a sense of purpose.

I kept thinking of Eric Hoffer while reading this book. Although there are murders, (this is a real police procedural), the overarching theme of the book is about organized white supremacist terrorism. There are evil leaders of the movement, just as in real life, but there are legions of followers, dedicated to the cause, true believers to the last man. The recruit of the title is the archetype of Hoffer's philosophy.

The book itself is terrific. The writing is excellent, the characters are interesting, and the pacing draws the reader along. "The Recruit" is the second in a series, but if you haven't read the first one, as I haven't, you will not have a problem keeping up. The setting is southern California in 1987, but the parallels to today are unmistakable. This is a book worth reading, both for the story itself, and for the lessons it has to teach.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

The novel begins in a place called Rancho Santa Elena—a new planned community and housing development south of Los Angeles—where a former LAPD detective named Ben Wade, who’s now working for the nascent community police department, is responding to a call about a missing dog. At the same time his significant other, Natasha, a county medical examiner, is looking into the drowning of a local real estate investor in his swimming pool. The two events seem ordinary, but when Wade arrives on scene he finds a mother in anguish, holding a toddler in her arms. As it turns out, the little boy has somehow ingested rat poison and both crime scenes, although miles apart, are somehow related. The family dog is found in the alley behind a Vietnamese grocery store run by a man named Bao, with its throat cut. It’s a hate crime, and an attempt to intimidate the immigrant family. As Wade begins investigating the drowning that Natasha has labeled as suspicious, the pair come to the realization that the developer was targeted because he was leasing properties to immigrants from Vietnam. It puts them on the trail of a young and growing white supremacist movement based on right wing Christianity.

Told from various points-of-view, the conflicts between groups grows more violent with each chapter in this well-plotted and disturbing read that has so many, many parallels with today’s events. Like it or not, this novel will make you take a long hard look at . . . and think about . . . your values. It’s a twisty and worthy read all the way to the exciting finish!

What a crazy book! So much of what happens and what is revealed is terrifying to think about. Drew gets into the heads of all the characters and some of the ideologies will make your brain hurt. The plot is extremely strong and allows the reader the ability to follow along easily. At times, this wasn’t an easy read but it was worth it.

*4.5 stars rounded up.

This is my first taste of author Alan Drew's work and I found it to be quite well-written. I accepted an arc from the publisher via NetGalley not knowing it is the second book in his Detective Ben Wade series, but had no trouble jumping in here. I will definitely make a point of reading book one now and any others to come.

Set in California in the late 1980s, the story is about 'an interstate conspiracy of hate to terrorize and kill minorities.' The story shows that the roots of such racism began shortly after the Vietnam War and found legitimacy under Donald Trump's political agenda unfortunately.

The recruit of the title is a young, impressionable teen who gets drawn into a gang of white supremacists because of his longing to belong. Gang members earn their chops by spilling blood. Need I say more?

Ben and the other characters are remarkably well-depicted. My favorite character is Ben's lady love, Natasha; I was quite moved by her experiences towards the end of the story. So dramatic!

If you are looking for an exciting summer read, I highly recommend this one.

The Recruit by Alan Drew was an exceedingly difficult book for me to read. Set in the 1980s, it is a detective story, but the violence, racism, white supremacy, and ignorance made it all so real I often had to stop and take a break.
You felt for young Jacob, the recruit of the supremacist group, as you watched him be molded into what was needed to accomplish their mission. All the characters were so well developed, and the story kept you riveted to the book. Simply stunning.
Thank you to the author, the publisher, and Net Galley for my arc of The Recruit.

Although set in 1987, this is a very topical novel focusing on the use of the then nascent internet and hate crimes based on white supremacy. It's a procedural for sure but it's also powerful commentary about hostility toward immigrants and others. Detective Ben Wade and his girlfriend foresneisc expect Natasha Betencourt know there's an undercurrent in the south Orange County of Santa Elena but it's the poisoning of a dog and a baby and then the murder of a developer than brings it to the forefront. It's Vietnamese people who bear the brunt of the hated. Jacob is recruited into the movement by Ian; both young men have been marginalized and abused, fueling their rage at innocents simply because of how they look or where they were born. It's tough to read in spots- there's a lot of anger- but Ben and Natasha make a good pair who work their way through the mess to find answers. Thanks to Netgalley for the ArC. A good read.

This is the second book in a series, I did not read the first but still enjoyed this read immensely. We mainly follow Detective Benjamin Wade and Medical Examiner Natasha Betancourt, who is also his girlfriend. They work on several cases and realize they may have something in common.
This is a bit of a darker read, which is expected in a thriller, racism and the difficulties that refugees face.
I loved the police procedural aspects of the book. Very well written, Alan Drew is very talented. This will keep you turning the pages!
Thanks to NetGalley for the arc.

4.5 stars. The Recruit is a powerful, chilling book about white supremacy's dangerous beliefs and actions, set in southern California in the 1980s. In the late 1980s, the internet was just getting started. Racist propaganda is being spread on message boards and is attracting bigoted people by urging attacks on minority groups as the beginning of a battle to strengthen white power. The story is even more disturbing when one realizes that this poisonous ideology has been increasingly spread and expanded with present technology making the internet available to almost everyone. The result has led to very recent, horrifying attacks.

This is a well-written book with intriguing characters and displays their inner thoughts and feelings, sometimes in an overwrought, emotional manner. Some unpleasant truths are explored about how subtle racism is downplayed or ignored. The author explores a range of thoughts from anti-racists who believe that the mixing of races is acceptable to those exhibiting violent racist views. How the real estate and business community shuts out hard-working and talented minorities is explored.

There is an elusive Reverend who recruits dissatisfied, rebellious youth to a secret hideaway in the mountains. They are trained as foot soldiers in the fight to destroy minority rights and ferment dissent. A preacher, Richard Wales, has launched a bulletin board on the new internet to recruit racists across the nation to commit horrific acts of terrorism. The discussion groups have reinforced their hatred of minorities, spreading twisted, fabricated beliefs, including distortions of Old Testament passages and stories and the necessity of opposing the ZOG (Zionist Organized Government). A poisonous foundation of their ideology is that the supreme white race will soon be overrun and displaced by the growing number of minorities, the Blacks, Asians, and Mexicans frequently referred to by the derogatory 'mud people.' A political leader who angrily ranted about the criminality of Mexicans and who used demeaning and disparaging terms about African countries showed that these malicious statements were tolerated at high levels, further validating hatred and suspicion towards minorities.

A potential recruit to these malignant beliefs is a vulnerable 15-year-old, Jacob Clay. His home life is unhappy. His father is a Viet Nam vet who has bouts of PTSD. An older neighbourhood boy is filling him with racist propaganda. Jacob discovers that his father is having a love affair with Linh, the educated daughter of Vietnamese refugees. Her father, Bao Phan, runs a successful grocery store despite obstacles. Bao finds a dog in the alleyway by his store. The dog has been poisoned and its throat cut. An intimidating note was stuck in the dog's mouth. Detective Ben Wade saves a poisoned baby and discovers the dead dog ingested the poison. A wealthy white real estate developer, Walter Brennan, has been murdered, presumably for renting and selling to minorities. Detective Ben's girlfriend, medical examiner Natasha and Detective Vanek attend the crime scene. A red thread connects both crimes, and it is part of the costume of a violent group of youthful neo-nazis. Soon more crimes are terrorizing the area. Youths with homemade weapons brutalize a group of migrant workers, and there is a terrible crime committed against a member of Bao's family. This reign of terror cumulates with a mass bombing within a crowd, killing three and critically injuring others. Other attacks were coordinated to take place in other parts of the country on the same day. This happens in the 1980s, but we see similar violent attacks are ongoing to the present day.

The Recruit was compelling, informative literary fiction that details the grooming and training of vulnerable, dissatisfied youth to commit crimes when influenced by leaders in virulent racist dogma. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the ARC.

The Recruit is a compelling and yet disturbing read that delves into the minds of White Supremacy in a small California town.

Even though it takes place in the 1980's it is so very relevant to today which gives you pause for thought.

It is both a mystery and a thriller and the pages turn themselves.

The characters of Ben and Natasha are well written and so real I felt I knew them.

So much happens in The Recruit that kept me reading and turning those pages after the lights should have been out.

Although it is the sequel to Shadow Man, you can read it as a stand alone . I did but will now go back and read the Shadow Man.

I was surprised as this not my typical read how much I loved this book and did want it to end.

The Recruit will stay with me for quite a long time.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group Random House for a mesmerizing read.

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