This book starts off very well, but quickly becomes hard to follow with so very many characters and things going on. I lost track of who was who numerous times and had to reread in an attempt to make sense of what was happening and why. I would strongly recommend a "who's who" listing at the front of the book. It would have helped a lot.

I feel like this could have been two books and been much more manageable.

Readers who enjoy police procedurals, dark, gritty thrillers and/or mysteries will likely enjoy The Recruit.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for an ARC at my request. All thoughts are my own.

There is a lot happening in this book, and maybe a bit too much at times. I found myself a little lost in the story sometimes, as there are many different aspects. It was certainly twisty and dark, although a bit slow in the beginning. The ending somewhat made up for it though.

An intense page turner with a twist or two I didn’t see coming. Strong character development. Kept me up past my bedtime. Enjoyed the read.

It took me a little while to get into this book but after a few chapters the characters started to connect with me. There were some surprising twists and a satisfying ending that made it all the more enjoyable.

There are a lot of moving parts to this novel ... maybe too many. There are white supremacists (both young punks and careful masters), the detective and his forensic pathologist girlfriend, his ex-wife, his daughter, a family of Vietnamese refugees befriended by the girlfriend, a detective from another city who may or may not be interested in the girlfriend, and more.

There also seemed to be a glitch in the timeline. The year is 1987. Ian is 21-years-old, so he was born in 1966. But his older brother was killed in Vietnam in the Battle of Huế (1968). That would mean that the brother was about 16 years older than Ian, and Ian would probably have no memories of him. And Ian’s little brother would have been born around 1971, even though his mother became virtually non-functional after the death of the older brother. Of course, it is always possible that I am totally mis-remembering this.

The novel does do a pretty good job of talking about white supremacists and the subtle forms of support and encouragement they receive from much of the white community, including the news media. It is also very timely, as xenophobia and racism are no longer so much in the shadows, becoming the highlight of some political platforms.

Set in the fictional town of Rancho Santa Elena, in Orange County, California, this is the second entry in Alan Drew’s series featuring Detective Ben Wade. As previously with SHADOW MAN, I thoroughly enjoyed this. Drew’s writing is incredible. Wonderful characterization, thrilling plot that keeps the pages turning, passages written with the attention to craft you would expect of someone who attended the esteemed Iowa Writers Workshop. This novel takes place in 1987 but is quite fitting for our times. We lay witness to the rise of a malignant force of white supremacy, primarily targeted at the recent arrival of refugees from the Vietnam War arriving in the sunny California town of Drew’s imagination. We lay witness to the legitimization of hate as it grows and festers throughout the story. We lay witness to a noirish nightmare that will impact several of the characters.

The former president famously uttered the words “both sides,” and set off a maelstrom of outrage, ironically, on both sides. Never-you-know-who’ers more than happy to castigate the president for his seeming reverence with those whose hearts were filled with hate, and loyalists that would stand by the president even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue. Drew here gives us a measured look at both sides, and in so doing raises a discourse that challenges notions about how hatred is bred. It was one of my favorite dynamics in the novel. There’s a lot of meat on this bone and giving a play-by-play of the plot would not give it justice. This should be one for the best of the year lists in crime fiction. Highly recommended.

A slow-paced and introspective thriller focusing on white supremacy gangs in California in the 1980s. I absolutely loved Alan Drew's previous book (one of my favorites of the year) so I was happy to know that this was a sequel featuring Ben & Natasha. This one is an atmospheric thriller which successfully avoids cliché reveals and plot-twists and instead focuses on realism and character development.

Nearly five years ago, I read and reviewed Shadow Man by Alan Drew, and I said it was “the best kind of novel: one that truly entertains the reader while making us THINK. Ben Wade is a great character, and I hope Shadow Man is the first in a series.” Then my (long) wait began, and finally I was ecstatic to receive a copy of The Recruit from Random House and NetGalley in exchange for this honest review.

Like Shadow Man, The Recruit is set in the fictional Rancho Santa Elena in 1987.
Having grown up in Southern Orange County, I have loved Drew’s ability to capture the setting so well: When detective Ben Wade responds to a call, he goes to “...a nice street…every house painted a shade of beige, little squares of mowed green grass, sprinklers draining the Colorado to keep that green.”

As Ben looks over the town, “...it struck him, suddenly, that South Orange County looked like the kind of place Nazis might have built if they had occupied California. The cultivated perfection…felt, well, fascist through a seductive facism, a type of authoritarianism that made you feel like you wanted to be controlled. Behind the “orange curtain” for sure.”

Ben seems like he may be getting ready for a life away from law enforcement: “Body surfing and tacos, that’s the retirement he wanted.” But there is something going on in paradise: a series of strange crimes that are seemingly unrelated until the seemingly unrelated clues of poisoning and red threads left at the scene are connected by Ben and forensic expert Natasha Betencourt.

Rancho Santa Elena has a growing white power movement, and it seems to be linked to a much wider terror network, using a new technology (remember, it’s 1987) called the internet. The pioneers in using this new tool find it can be helpful to spread their ideology, plan attacks, and lure young men (always young men!) into committing crimes. As Ben digs deeper, the parallels between the fictional Rancho Santa Elena and present day U.S. suburbia are chilling.

The plot twists and turns are terrific, and Drew’s writing is amazing. As the crimes and their perpetrators are revealed, I found the story VERY unsettling, as deep-seated hatred, violence, and racism emerge. I often wonder how it is that the current U.S. has become so angry and filled with scary crazy people, often young men “...in transition to manhood, that in-between place of confusion.” Ben understands how living in the rough parts of L.A. might contribute to violent behavior, but the reasons for the white power movement in Rancho Santa Elena aren’t so obvious to him as he goes deeper into the movement. When he is in the courtroom as one of the leaders faces justice, “...it struck Ben how small he looked, so lost in his own sense of genetic superiority that he was blind to his mediocrity. ..It struck Ben then that racism – the violent kind Rowan traded in and the kind that lied beneath the surfaces of places like Rancho Santa Elena–was a sort of suicide…a whole lot of white people in this country would be willing to burn it all down, democracy, America, the whole damn thing, to maintain the fantasy of their superiority. “

Holy crap, that writing is perfection in so many ways. As for how the news about the movement is presented, “...reporters and the anchors couldn’t quite wrap their heads around the idea that these nice-looking white people could do such terrible things.“Just as Shadow Man told a great story while looking at two social issues (the plight of farmworkers and the effects of child abuse), The Recruit does a masterful job looking at the disturbing and growing issue of the white power movement. I truly can’t say enough about how great this book is. Why do I only get five stars?

A wild, action packed, full of surprises.
I found as the book progressed along with the main character develops and we get to know them more, I became very invested in their journey.
Detective Benjamin Wade and forensic expert Natasha Betencourt were amazing!
I couldn't get enough of them.
The mystery has lots of depth and lots of unexpected twists and turns that will throw the readers off their edges.
All in All I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it was intriguing and super fast paced straight from the beginning. Alan Drew knows how to weave a great story.

Random House,
Thank You for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!
I will post my review to B&N, platforms, blog and Waterstone close to pub date!

A surprisingly good thriller that focuses on the power of white supremacy in a small California town. I think that what makes this book so engaging is the interactions of the characters and the development of their relationships. Though set in the 1970s, there's nothing happening here that couldn't be happening today, so it is also a cautionary tale for the reader.
I was totally absorbed and almost didn't want it to end. That's always a sign of a very good book!

This was a good book, this was the first book I had read by this author and I may have to go back and read his others. It is 1987 and Jacob is a fifteen year old, bullied at school, a father that probably has PTSD from his time in Vietnam who has flashbacks and takes out his anger on Jacob, a mom with a drinking problem, he discovers photos his father had taken in Vietnam, not pleasant ones. He also finds bullets and uses the gunpowder to create pipe bombs, crude but effective, after exploding one, his neighbor, Ian, comes over and says they should get together sometime. Meanwhile, Ben is a detective and happens to hear a call over the radio requesting assistance at an address he happens to be close to, at the address a woman is holding her son who is not breathing, Ben performs CPR and saves the boy, he eventually finds out the boy had been poisoned, he then learns about a dog that had been killed and left outside a Vietnamese restaurant, the dog had been poisoned as well, the dog belonged to the boy. Another detective, Vanek, from another detachment is investigating a murder at a mansion, a real estate developer has been found bludgeoned to death. There is a lot going on in this book, Jacob is recruited by Ian into a white supremist society and nothing good comes from that. All of these strings eventually come together in a very strong ending. I would recommend. Thanks to #Netgalley and #Random House for the ARC.

The Recruit kicks off with tremendous potential for a dark story with engaging characters. I loved the 70’s vibe of LA which Alan Drew captured so vividly. The narrative opens up with a solid focus on setting up the empathetic protagonist with a desire to protect the vulnerable. However, the writing loses steam in the middle, where the story seems to become stagnant and stale and the character-heavy focus drifts off for far too long. Certainly, the author’s inherent flair for solid writing will exude in his future works.