The Bitter Past
A Mystery
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
In the tradition of Craig Johnson and C. J. Box, Bruce Borgos's The Bitter Past begins a compelling series set in the high desert of Nevada featuring Sheriff Porter Beck…
Porter Beck is the sheriff in the high desert of Nevada, north of Las Vegas. Born and raised there, he left to join the Army, where he worked in Intelligence, deep in the shadows in far off places. Now he's back home, doing the same lawman's job his father once did, before his father started to develop dementia. All is relatively quiet in this corner of the world, until an old, retired FBI agent is found killed. He was brutally tortured before he was killed and clues at the scene point to a mystery dating back to the early days of the nuclear age. If that wasn't strange enough, a current FBI agent shows up to help Beck's investigation.
In a case that unfolds in the past (the 1950s) and the present, it seems that a Russian spy infiltrated the nuclear testing site and now someone is looking for that long-ago, all-but forgotten person, who holds the key to what happened then and to the deadly goings on now.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Borgos's atmospheric debut, the start of a series focused on Nevada sheriff Porter Beck, is a clever, spy-flavored mystery. Forced to retire from the Army for medical reasons, Beck has returned home to Lincoln County, Nev., to help care for his dementia-stricken father. Beck's expertise on Russia from his military service proves unexpectedly useful when he's called to investigate the gruesome murder of retired FBI agent Ralph Atterbury. The assailant tied Atterbury to his recliner, skinned his extremities, pulled out his teeth, and blowtorched his face. Beck is sure that the killing wasn't random, a conviction buttressed by the arrival of Sana Locke, whom the FBI has sent from D.C. to help him investigate. Locke shares that, in the 1950s, the KGB sent a spy to Nevada to learn about the atomic testing program being run near Lincoln County. In the '60s, the operative began cooperating with U.S. intelligence—and Atterbury was the Russian double agent's last FBI handler. In toggling timelines, Borgos paints a vivid picture of midcentury Cold War espionage and slowly reveals how its consequences reverberate to the present. Intelligent storytelling and well-drawn characters bode well for future series entries.
Customer Reviews
4.25stars-detailed, complex, twisted
4.25stars-THE BITTER PAST is the first instalment in Bruce Borgos’ contemporary, adult, mystery suspense, crime thriller series focusing on Nevada Sheriff Porter Beck.
Told from dual time lines (1957 and the present), using first person (Porter) and third person (Freddie) THE BITTER PAST follows several converging paths. In the past, the reader is up close and personal during the Cold War between the US and Russia, and the fight for nuclear domination. In the present, Sheriff Porter Beck must contend with the suicides of or potential murders of several local elderly gentlemen, murders that have brought in the FBI. Meanwhile, a young seventeen year old LDS woman, a newly married wife goes missing, and Porter’s team must decide whether she is on the run, or a victim of foul play but as his team searches for both the missing woman, and the people responsible for a string of elderly murders, the FBI reveals the Cold War between Russia and the US has now taken control in the present, as the murder victims are all connected to the same time period of 1957.
The world building focuses on two time lines. We are up close and personal with a physicist in 1957 who works security within and around the nuclear testing zone but said physicist is not whom he presents himself to be, and finds himself caught in a life and death struggle with the people in charge. Fast forward to present day, and the Russians have begun cleaning house, taking down anyone connected to the 1957 nuclear fiasco.
We are introduced to Porter Beck’s team of deputies and investigators, as well as his sister / arms specialist Brinley Cummings, his father Joe Beck, and Agent Sana Locke. The requisite evil has many faces. As the characters begin to reveal themselves, covert agents and spies, infiltrate what was and what is.
THE BITTER PAST is a story of secrets and lies, twists and turns, power and control, murder and mystery, espionage intrigue and suspense. The premise is detailed, complex, twisted and tangled; the characters are energetic, determined and dynamic but all are not whom they present to be.