The Wrecker

In 1907, Van Dorn detective Isaac Bell is tasked with stopping a mysterious saboteur who has been wrecking Southern Pacific Railroad infrastructure across the American West. The Wrecker recruits desperate men from hobo jungles, uses them to cause maximum damage, and then kills them afterward to eliminate witnesses. Bell pursues a figure who seems to anticipate every move and disappear across vast distances, while sensing that the attacks are building toward something catastrophic.

Scott Brick is a reliable anchor for the Isaac Bell series, bringing the early twentieth-century period to life with his combination of authority and period-appropriate formality. His Bell is energetic and methodical, and Brick keeps the novel's panoramic Western setting vivid throughout. At fourteen and a half hours, this is a well-paced period thriller that delivers on its promises.