Daniel M. Ford

When a teenager disappears from an elite boarding school, local police throw the seemingly innocuous case to their neighborhood PI. Enter Jack Dixon: college dropout, ex-cop, and ex-cook. What should be a simple case quickly turns sour, pushing Jack into the path of Nordic biker cultists and vicious drug dealers. But the houseboat-dwelling PI is determined to find the truth - and the missing kid - even though his persistence leads him into a thorny tangle of drugs and violence that could rip his sleepy waterfront life apart.

A Jack Dixon Novel

Body Broker

Jeremy Anderberg

The last time I was this pleasantly surprised by a novel that landed on my doorstep was Seth Greenland’s The Hazards of Good Fortune.

Ford is not a rookie writer, but this is the first book of his that falls into my own reading wheelhouse and is the start of his Jack Dixon series, which revolves around a Philip Marlowe-esque PI who lives on a houseboat in Baltimore.

The modern comparison character is inevitably Jack Reacher — the gruff ex-military man who stars in Lee Child’s never-ending series. But I actually found Jack Dixon to be more likable. Yes, he’s gruff, but in a fun way — he’s a weightlifter who dogs on cardio any chance he can get, he pounds peanut butter by the gallon, enjoys a fine homemade cocktail, and can cook his ass off.

The strength of the novel lies in how different it is from most modern detective/thriller stories. For one, I really appreciated the brevity. At 250 or so pages, it’s half of what Child and James Patterson and Brad Thor are regularly cranking out. And whereas those guys rely heavily on crazy plot twists and violent shootouts, Ford writes superb characters who are solving a case that’s indeed surprising, but not reliant on unbelievable turns in the story.

It’s clear that Ford is a writer rather than just a story plotter. It’s a distinction I really appreciated and made me want to dig into some more classic detective stories.

The Body Broker was a quick, super fun read that’s definitely gritty, but doesn’t rely on the usual tacts of gratuitous violence or sex. Definitely felt like a novel out of the 50s, in the best way possible. I definitely recommend it, and can’t wait for the next title in the series, which comes out in the Spring.

Body Broker A Jack Dixon Novel

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