Blood Will Tell

In Blood and Bone, Austin S. Camacho’s fourth novel in his Hannibal Jones series, the Washington PI takes on a missing person case.

The novel is a sort of family saga. When he is hired to find, Jacob Mortimer, the estranged son of a Black millionaire Harlan and father of 18 year old Kyle, Hannibal has to work against time. Kyle needs a bone marrow that only Jacob can provide, or he will die in a few weeks. Abandoning his wife Camille and new born son 18 years ago, Jacob disappeared with a woman called Barbie and some of his father’s valuable coins.

In what starts out as a routine missing person case, Hannibal soon finds himself tangling with gangsters in New Jersey, helping solve a murder, and preventing a scheme to defraud Harlan Mortimer of some of his millions. His search for Jacob takes him from Washington DC to Baltimore, New Jersey, Texas, Virginia, and finally Mexico. Along the way, he discovers a young woman in Baltimore who is also looking for Jacob. In New Jersey and Virginia, he tangles with a two mobster brothers. In Texas and Mexico, his journey ends in a confrontation with some very bad people.

Camacho opens the novel in his usual violent style, which is also the beginning of the subplot. Hannibal beats two henchmen guarding the pimp Floyd in the Tip Top club so he can negotiate the release of an 18 year whore named Jewel who wants to get out of the business. Jewel will later get the evil eye and Hannibal the silent treatment from Cindy when she sees Jewel standing in Hannibal’s kitchen.

Camacho’s inventiveness is again on display, and he doesn’t waste words on pointless descriptions. He keeps the pace moving and sustains the suspense until the very end. The subplot involving finding Jewel’s mother seems at first as though it is merely there as relief from the violent action of the main plot but Camacho skillfully weaves it into the central plot while showing the evolving relationship between Hannibal and his girl friend Cindy.

The intricate plot of Blood and Bones with the clever twists and surprise identity of the bad guys will hold your interest to the very last word. Like me, you probably will want the story to continue even as Camacho neatly wraps up all the loose e

An Undamaged Novel

Austin S. Camacho’s third novel, Damaged Goods, in his Hannibal Jones series, is not as successful as his debut novel, Collateral Damage, but is much better than The Troubleshooter.

 

Millionaire Benjamin Blair hires PI troubleshooter Hannibal Jones to find the psychopath who seduced his Black maid Anita Cooper and stole  from her a formula worth millions of dollars that her pharmaceutical chemist father left her. Although Benjamin is generous toward his maid, he also wants the formula for his company.

Vernon Cooper, a Black pharmaceutical chemical genius, came up with a formula for curing addictions but kept it from his employer, a large pharmaceutical company. While serving time in prison for a hit and run accident, he meets Roderick Mantooth to whom he reveals the existence of the formula and the fact he left it with his daughter.

Rod creates the “damaged goods” of the title, women he seduces using BDSM, (bondage, discipline or domination, submission, masochism) to make them his slaves. The problem Hannibal faces is how to get into Rod’s group to find where he has hidden the formula. The case takes him into the unfamiliar, unsettling, and dangerous world of BDSM. Hannibal as a bad dude into kinky sex games while maintaining his integrity is the force driving the plot toward an unexpected and disappointing conclusion.

I enjoyed the humor of Hannibal posing as a bad dude into BDSM, and his attempt to make a rap CD to impress his young teenage friend Monty, the grandson of Mother Washington, the matriarch of the neighborhood where they live. He wants to save Monty from a life on the mean streets of Washington DC.

Hannibal has in his pocket an engagement ring and plans to ask girlfriend Cindy to marry him, which makes for pleasant suspense of will he or will he not pop the question. A married hardboiled PI would be a nice departure from tradition.

Although Damaged Goods is a routine crime story with no surprises (the ending ,though unexpected, isn’t a surprise), it is still an exciting novel with plenty of the usual fisticuffs and gunplay characteristic of Camacho’s other novels, and well worth your time if you like the action of watching the hero take down the bad guy as I do.

A Backstory Thriller

In debut novels, writers sometimes don’t provide extensive background information about the characters’ lives, which in many cases doesn’t matter, but if the protagonist is to be a series character, readers, the writer realizes, will want to know more about his history. This realization provides an excuse for a poorly structured follow-up novel. The Troubleshooter, Austin S. Camacho’s second novel is the backstory of how PI Hannibal Jones met the four homeless men who became his friends and part employees in his PI business, and how he met his love interest, the beautiful Cuban lady lawyer Cynthia (Cindy) Santiago.

Troubleshooter PI Hannibal Jones accepts a job clearing a building in a tough neighborhood in Southeast Washington DC of drug dealers, addicts, whores, and other criminal types. He needs the money and a place to live after the building in which he lived burns down, forcing him temporarily into a hotel.

Hannibal’s main adversary in this predictable crime thriller is Sal Ronzini, son of  mob boss Anthony Ronzini. After Hannibal evicts the fence who works for Sal from the building, along with the addicts, dealers, and whores, Sal comes after him. Over and over, Sal comes at Hannibal, and each time Hannibal beats him back but not without help.

In the opening, Hannibal negotiates a settlement with a bookie on behalf of ex-taxi driver Ray Santiago, father of Cynthia Santiago, for repayment of Ray’s gambling debts. He hires Ray to be his driver. He meets four homeless men with various skills at the shelter where he volunteers. Sarge is a Black Vietnam vet. Quaker is his White friend. Virgil is a Black former electrician and ex-addict. Timothy is a hot-headed Jamaican and plumber, who does not become a permanent employee as do the other four men. Hannibal’s crew evens the odds against against Sal’s thugs.

Hannibal discourages the residents of the neighborhood from trying to help because he doesn’t want any of them to get hurt.

The only interesting character in the novel is Anthony Ronzini. He explains why Sal refuses to quit trying to evict Hannibal. In the old days members of each ethnic group knew who they were in relation to other groups but cultural diversity and civil rights (“bunch of crap”) confused things, he tells Hannibal.

As Hannibal interprets it, Ronzini is saying “the boy don’t know any other way.”

“If I was another Italian, he'd know how to deal with me," Hannibal said, standing. "Or at least, he'd know he could deal with me. Sure. Sally probably only sees black guys as servants. Or customers. Maybe competitors. But not as men."

"He knows who he is," Ronzini said. "He doesn't know who you are. I mean, he thinks you're a nigger, but you don't act like a nigger. And he's still acting like a dumb wop.”

The novel is interesting because it provides background information about the serious character, Hannibal Jones. It is otherwise a forgettable.