I liked the book. The premisse is clear, the pace is fast, the tension is high.

The book is also technically written well.
Sometimes, when I read a book, I do not understand why the author starts a new chapter or a new part. Here I do not have to wonder, it is all very understandable.

I did not always understand the abbreviations, as I am not an American citizen. I did not understand the word foxhole here, luckily my husband did.
Sometimes I do not agree: Vince, a legal man but also a military man, should not know how to know a direction? I cannot imagine. My husband does, and he has not even been a Boy Scout.
Later Vince asks if they should take the road or the creek. To me the answer is very clear and I do think it should have been to Vince too.
I had thought the book would be most about someone who wanted to win the election. It is, but this is not emphasized. The main subject of the book is how to catch a (suspected) killer, who has lots of allies on high places.

I am very happy with the end of the book and I look forward to reading more of this new series. ( )

Found this a book which was very hard to put down after I had turned the first page. Not your classic Crime thriller at all; this one has you sitting on the edge of your seat.
Reflects on how people in positions of power can so easily cover a shady past, we all have skeletons in the closet, but some have real bones they have buried. Corruption runs deep and it reminds me of the old tale of a politician who says that while he is busy kissing babies, he is working out how to steel their lollipop.
The whole plot and characters of the story were very believable and made it all that much easier to become immersed in another world. Also, having a snippet into the past explained things so that the reader wouldn’t get lost.
Would recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good mystery/thriller; you will enjoy it, I know I did. ( )

Foxholes by Travis Tougaw is a very good novel about a former serviceman in Afghanistan. This is pretty much a thinking man’s thriller. The story covers some action in Afghanistan by a former NCO in the Air Force. He served as a paralegal within the Judge Advocate General staff at Bagram Air Base. The Afghanistan portion of the novel is concerned with two trips to a remote base that was involved in the reconstruction programs the US was running during the war. The first call out was regarding a fight between two servicemen and the consultations with the commanding officer on punishment. The second call out was regarding the suicide of one of those same servicemen. The convoy was ambushed on the way to remote base with the NCO paralegal being injured during the ambush. These two events serve as the basis of the remaining portion of the story.

The story starts out with retired NCO seeing a campaign ad for the former commanding officer of the remote reconstruction base running for the US Senate from Colorado. This triggers flashbacks to the handling of the suicide in Afghanistan by the commanding officer. Vince Marcotte never accepted the suicide verdict at the time and felt that the investigation was a sham. He starts to look into the matter again by talking to the family of the serviceman and his former supervisor in Afghanistan. At the same time, in his work as a paralegal at a local law firm, he is investigating some partners in a business venture of one of the firm’s clients. One of the partners in the business venture ends up dead as a result of suicide. Other partners in the venture include the candidate and one other person from Afghanistan. His gut reaction is that this is a murder being covered up as a suicide based on talking to a neighbor of the suicide victim.

This begins the real meat of the story, where Vince Marcotte becomes a citizen detective trying to determine if both the case in Afghanistan and Colorado are murders concealed as suicides. He teams with another citizen detective and private detective to get more information. He receives a threatening visit from someone who leaves a message on his door that says “YOU NEVER GET HURT MINDING YOUR OWN BUSINESS.” He also confronts the candidate at a meet and greet event and gets the same message whispered to him by the candidate. These two events along with some other evidence he has gathered reinforces his conviction that both death were murders not suicides.

I will end my summary of the novel at this point to avoid spoiling the rest of the plot. The book is well written. It covers a part of the Afghanistan war that is not really covered that much in most thrillers. I highly recommend this book. ( )