THE VULTURE
An Ike Schwartz Mystery

A bomb destructive enough to demolish Ike Schwartz’s car and create a crater in the road and take out the widows on both sides of Main Street for a half a block, sets off alarms in the country’s security agencies. Was this an over the top attempt at a cop killing or domestic terrorism?

Cars and the fatal consequences of getting into and driving off in the wrong one begins a journey that ends in an armed stand-off in Idaho. While bringing bad guys to justice is the one thing Ike has done for years. Facing an armed militia backed by powerful and politically connected men, is something else.

If some banks and businesses, as we are told, are too big to fail, does the same reasoning mean that some people are too connected, too important, or too wealthy to bring to justice? Martin Pangborn, head of the Radical Militia, The Fifty-first Star is such a person and when he turns his anger against Ike, a different equation must be developed to bring him to justice. But sometimes things are not always what they seem, as Pangborn learns to his dismay.

Readers of the Ike Schwartz novels know by now that in this episode as in the previous nine, Ike will ultimately prevail, justice will be done; Ruth will have a lot to say, and the Picketsville Deputies will once again prove themselves.

The Vulture, on the other hand, was something no one was prepared for.