Choke Point : A Brinker Mystery (Brinker P.I.)

Rating:
Summary: action-packed border crime thriller
Review: A riot broke out at a college football game leaving a Hispanic man dead. The next day April Lennox informs PI Brinker at his Tucson office that the victim was a whistleblower who contacted her about wrong doings in Nogales, Mexico. She asks him to accompany her on a visit to the deceased's mother to see if she can provide some light on what her son knew. Brink says no and not long afterward, April's sexually abused body is found in Nogales.

Brink feels guilty that he failed to talk her out of going and not accompanying her. As a former border patrol agent, he has contacts on both sides of the law and borders, which he uses to track April's movements. He learns she was killed in Nogales and her death and that of ten other victim ties to the Mexican factories using cheap labor. Brink's friend visits the mother and finds that her son was pressing for better working conditions at the Amistadt office. Brink feels an obligation to obtain justice for April by capturing a killer and his employer.

The protagonist uses a drug dealer and that man's associates in Nogales to assist him in his efforts to provide justice to the victims as Brink believes the end justifies the means. The law means nothing to his unknown enemy so Brink adapts the same game theory leading to quite a border thriller. James C. Mitchell takes his audience on quite an eye-opening borderlands' experience with the action-packed CHOKE POINT crime thriller.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: Nicely done noire mystery
Review: Arizona private detective Brinker doesn't want to go back to Mexico. When a pretty reporter asks for his help investigating a death and a story, Brinker turns her down. But when April Lennox becomes the next victim, Brinker feels personally involved. Unfortunately for him, everyone seems to be quiet and no one knows anything. The Mexican police think April's death is just another sex crime. The Arizona police have no reason to get involved--there is no obvious connection to the unidentified body on their side of the border. Which leaves Brinker with nothing but his instincts and an IOU he really hadn't wanted to call from Mexican drug-lords.

A reporter makes enemies. One of those enemies just might be an ex-boyfriend who got abusive when his girlfriends didn't cooperate. Possible, but Brinker thinks the truth is more complicated. Because April had been investigating a story that involved oppression and murder, Brinker thinks of the maquilas--border factories set up by companies fleeing the wages of the USA. His suspicions become more pointed when he learns that a number of murders seem to have maquila connections. April could have been investigating one of those--but would someone really kill an alternative press reporter just to cover up a bit of union-busting?

Author James C. Mitchell spins a delightful noire story. Brinker has problems with his women--April is murdered, his longtime girlfriend has left Arizona to move to New York, away from Brinker's dangerous life, and he can never quite connect with longtime best-friend Gabi. He ends up putting his trust in druglords who put even less value on human life than the maquila owners. Still, guilt and that strange private investigator honor keep Brinker on the job--until things get personal.

Mitchell's writing gave me a strong sense of place--of windswept LA, the deserts of Arizona, and the frenetic border towns of Mexico--where jobs, money, drugs, and sex create a vibrant but dangerous society. Once the story really got going, it dragged me in and kept me reading. Nicely done, Mr. Mitchell.

Rating:
Summary: Brinker's Back
Review: Once again Mr. Mitchell has given us an interesting, well-thought out and gripping novel involving his favorite gumshoe... Private Detective Brinker. When Brinker becomes privy to a man being shot following an NCAA Basketball final in his home town of Tucson, Arizona, he's surprised to get drawn into the murder the next day by a female news reporter who had been about to meet the dead man shortly before he was killed. Brinker is inclined to stay out of the whole thing but decides to ask a few questions and the answers lead to a plot that thickens as the story flips back and forth between the Southern US and Mexico until it reaches it's exceptional climax. Somewhat faster paced than Mitchell's first novel "Lover's Crossing", "Choke Point" still retains all of the interesting side-bar detail including more references to old 60's songs that remain with the reader when the narrative is on hold. There is no doubt that James C. Mitchell is going to be around for some time. He has already developed a style that gives promise of reaching that plateau where such authors as Tanenbaum, George, Lescroart and Turow dwell

Bryan Lord, Philippines