LEVON’S KIN
By Chuck Dixon
Rough Edges Press
241 pgs
Even since discovering this series a year ago, with book seven, “Levon’s Home,” we’ve been playing catch-up. Both go back to the first “Levon’s Trade” and jump ahead to the newer titles. We are also well aware that a proposed film is in the works. It will be based on a film script by Sylvester Stallone and star Jason Statham. That we are excited by that prospect is an understatement.
Okay, so on to “Levon’s Kin,” i.e. volume five. After the events in the cold wilds of Maine, Cade and his daughter, Merry, return to his home in Alabama to find rest and peace with his Uncle Fern; a rough old codger living in the backwoods with his three dogs. No sooner are they settled in when Cade’s half-brother, Dale, suggest they go hunting together after wild boars. Cade agrees but soon discovers he’s been duped in helping Dale destroy a hidden meth-lab operated by Mexican illegal’s; members of a dangerous cartel.
Within days of that event, other Hispanics arrive and brutalize their counter-parts, a redneck outlaw family also in the meth business believing them to be guilty of the attack on their base. And just like that a blood war is ranging in the hills and bodies from both camps are piling up. When Cade realizes his loved ones are vulnerable and will eventually become collateral damage, he goes on the offensive.
Dixon crams more action in a single Levon Cade thriller than most writers do in a half dozen books. Many times, while devouring this chapter, we found ourselves recalling those days, after coming home from Vietnam, when we discovered Don Pendleton’s Executioner tales. Honestly, Levon Cade is the rightful heir to Mack Bolan. Oh, yeah.
