Death at Fort Devens

by Peter Colt

Overview

It’s a race against time to find a teenager missing on the mean streets of Boston, in this hardboiled mystery featuring Andy Roark, Vietnam veteran turned Private Investigator.

"As good as, and maybe even better, than Robert Parker or Dennis Lehane, Peter Colt’s Andy Roark is my new favorite sleuth" – International aid worker, journalist and writer Roberta Gately, author of the Jessie Novak mysteries

"Strong mystery . . . Colt plays fair with the reader before the satisfying reveal" Publishers Weekly

Boston, 1985. Private Investigator Andy Roark left the military behind years ago, but his past comes flooding back when he’s hired by an old army buddy who’s worried about his rebellious teenage daughter’s safety. There are bonds of blood between Roark and the highly-decorated Lieutenant Colonel Dave Billings, forged in the steamy Vietnamese jungle, and some debts aren’t easy to forget.

Working the case for free, Roark’s investigation quickly leads him to Boston’s Combat Zone, five acres of sex, drugs and crime, right in the heart of one of America’s oldest cities – and to Judy’s unsavory new boyfriend, the drug-dealing K-nice.

Then Judy runs away, and the clock starts ticking in earnest. Roark is determined to save his friend’s daughter from a life of drugs and prostitution, but it’ll take more than missing-person flyers and polite questions to save the girl and get them both out of the concrete jungle of the Combat Zone alive.

This page-turning hard-edged mystery, written by a US Army veteran and New England police officer, is a great choice for readers who enjoy military detail, twisty plots and classic PI heroes with plenty of flaws, humour and attitude.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781448307661
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	06/07/2022
Series:	An Andy Roark mystery , #3
Edition description:	Main
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	1,115,492
Product dimensions:	5.91(w) x 8.98(h) x (d)

About the Author

Peter Colt is a 1996 graduate of the University of Rhode Island with a BA in Political Science and a 24-year veteran of the Army Reserve with deployments to Kosovo and Iraq as an Army Civil Affairs officer. He is currently a police officer in Rhode Island. He is married with two sons and two perpetually feuding cats. He is the author of the Andy Roark mysteries: The Off-Islander, Back Bay Blues and Death at Fort Devens.

Editorial Reviews

04/25/2022

Set in 1985, Colt’s strong third mystery featuring Boston cop-turned-PI Andy Roark (after 2020’s Back Bay Blues) takes Roark to Fort Devens, a Massachusetts Army base, at the request of David Billings, his former lieutenant in Vietnam, who saved Roark’s life during a North Vietnamese ambush. Billings, who’s on track to be promoted to colonel, is worried about his 17-year-old daughter, Judy. She’s not been home for several days and has been dating one of the enlisted men under his command. Roark is eager to repay his debt to Billings by looking for her, starting with leads connected to her love life. What he learns makes him worried that Judy’s fallen in with a violent drug-dealing thug, information that takes him to Boston’s seedy and dangerous Combat Zone district in search of her. Roark’s anger issues and his untreated trauma from his wartime experiences complicate the investigation. Colt doesn’t pull any punches and plays fair with the reader before the satisfying reveal. Fans of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels interested in a grittier private investigator will be eager to see more of Roark. Agent: Cynthia Manson, Cynthia Manson Literary. (June)

Publishers Weekly

Roark's skill at his job is displayed amid a gift for self-conscious mockery . . . There's plenty of room for detection and a blood-soaked finale

Booklist on Back Bay Blues

01/01/2022

In this third in a well-received series, 1980s Boston private eye Andy Roark follows wayward teenager Judy into the city's infamous Combat Zone at the behest of her distraught father, an old army buddy. Andy quickly learns that Judy's new boyfriend is a drug dealer, but Judy's disappearance is a game changer.

Library Journal

2022-03-30
Doing a favor for a fellow veteran who saved his life in Vietnam launches Boston shamus Andy Roark on a search littered with dead ends.

By 1985, Lt. Col. David Billings’ daughter, Judy, has reached the age when she’s started hanging out with unsuitable young men, and some not so young, and stopped listening to either her father or her mother, who’s drying out in Palm Springs once again. Now Judy’s gone AWOL, and Dave wants Andy, who’s never forgotten that he owes him his life, to look for her. Asking Dave to put aside a dollar to pay him, Andy hunts down Judy’s boyfriend, Derrick Page, a motor pool mechanic at Fort Devens, where Dave’s been assigned while he waits for his next inevitable promotion. Derrick insists he’s an ex-boyfriend who can’t help, and Judy’s friend Cindy, a waitress at a bowling alley, can only point to Kevin, the older guy Judy’s been hanging around with, whose nickname, K-nice, is not entirely accurate. Andy and his ex-lover Sue Teller make a reconnaissance tour of Boston’s Combat Zone, but although Andy stirs up a certain amount of collateral damage, he doesn’t find Judy. It turns out that Dave has known all along who Judy was with but hasn’t mentioned it for personal reasons. So Andy starts over again, armed with new information and a sharper sense of wariness. There’s only one plot twist that could possibly cap this trail of red herrings and false leads, and very few readers will be as surprised as Andy when it arrives.

The target audience: private-eye fans who greet a two-page glossary of military terms with delight.

Kirkus Reviews

A classical mystery with an honor-bound detective and a keen sense of place . . . Roark is genuinely likeable (not too tough, but not a patsy)

The New York Times on Back Bay Blues