ONE OF THE WICKED

A Navy SEAL turned therapist runs into big trouble when he tries to help a buddy keep his mistress safe.

Even though he’s clean and sober, Mick Callahan’s life isn’t exactly moonlight and roses. Thanks to AA, he’s beaten back the demons loosed on him by Danny Bell, his abusive stepfather. But his radio spot has been snatched by a right-wing demagogue, and he can’t seem to get it right with his police-detective honey Darlene Hernandez. Even so, when his friend-in-need Bud “Bone” Stone asks him to keep Big Paul Pesci from taking out his wrath over Bone’s unpaid debt on Bone’s girlfriend Brandi DeLillo, Mick just can’t say no. He takes time out from his private therapy practice and enlists the aid of his AA sponsor Hal Solomon and a hacker named Jerry to draw a bead on Pesci through cyberspace while Darlene’s private eye cousin Larry Donato sends him Dave Lopez to tail Brandi on the ground. Of course Pesci has his crew on the job too, and pretty soon a couple of his goons are driving Mick out to his splashy new casino in Nevada’s Valley of Fire so that his main man Nikolaou Argetoianu can throw a good scare into him. It’s Mick vs. Nicky—and the stakes are the right to keep breathing.

In spite of, or maybe because of, some wacky shifts in point of view, the action keeps on coming in Mick’s third case (Eye of the Burning Man, 2005, etc.).