Drift. Finished 8-4-13, rating 4.5/5, thriller, 384 pages, pub. 2013

When Philadelphia narcotics detective Doyle Carrick loses his mother and step-father within weeks of each other, he gains a twenty-day suspension for unprofessional behavior and instructions to lay low at the unfamiliar house he’s inherited in rural Pennsylvania.
Feeling restless and out of place, Doyle is surprised to find himself falling for his new neighbor, Nola Watkins, who’s under pressure to sell her organic farm to a large and mysterious development company. He’s more surprised to see high-powered drug dealers driving the small-town roads—dealers his bosses don’t want to hear about.
But when the drug bust Doyle’s been pushing for goes bad and the threats against Nola turn violent, Doyle begins to discover that what’s growing in the farmland around Philadelphia is much deadlier than anything he could have imagined . . .

from Goodreads

I was excited to read this one since having a son with allergies and food sensitivities has led me to be more vigilant about the food he eats.  I am no expert, but I know enough to be worried about the food we buy and put into our bodies without a thought.  An example, I was about to buy a jar of pickles, hoping Gage would like them.  I checked the back and high fructose corn syrup was the second ingredient and Yellow dye was the last.  Sigh.  I did not buy them.  Anyway, the point is that I think this is an important subject.  This book was about that a bit, but it really was about the evils far beyond a dye here or a preservative there, way more than I like to even consider even though I know it’s happening.  GMOs may seem harmless, but most don’t understand enough to be worried.  At least until after they read this book.

Doyle is a cop with more than nine lives since he used at least that many while on this suspension from his job.  His spidey senses knew something was going on in the farming community where his mother and stepmother left him their house.  They also left him a junkie boarder, but that was only one of Doyle’s many problems.  The local sheriff had it out for him as did the local thugs and he did have a funeral to get through, so why not take the time to develop a crush on the organic farmer across the road?  He was a busy man.

This is a first-rate thriller.  Yes, you may have to suspend your disbelief here and there and I wish that Doyle had have had a little more retrospect as the dead bodies piled up at his hands, BUT I was never bored and was always engaged.  I can actually see a series started here although I don’t know if that’s what McGoran has in mind.  I’ve seen a few compare Doyle to Lee Child’s Jack Reacher and while I get the comparison Doyle is still a cop, not a renegade.  But the dead bodies do seem to follow both characters.

Highly recommend.

I am a happy participant in this TLC Book Tour 🙂  Check out what other bloggers have to say about this eco-thriller. Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy.