The Wild Life by David Gordon

Published by Mysterious Press on April 26, 2022

David Gordon’s books about Joe Brody are all kinds of fun. Joe is a military sniper turned criminal who tries to keep the shadiest side of his life hidden from the FBI agent he sleeps with. She knows he’s a criminal but doesn’t want to know the details. Joe is employed by a crime family, but all the crime bosses in the New York City area occasionally get together and hire Joe to perform a task that serves the public good. Joe’s job is essentially to make New York City a safer place for criminals and honest people alike.

Joe chased terrorists during the first novels in the Joe the Bouncer series, a contrivance that was getting old. In The Wild Life, Gordon diversifies Joe’s services. Someone has been making prstitutes disappear. The crime bosses feel protective of working girls, particularly when they work in establishments that are under their protection. A Romanian woman who worked in a dungeon was befriended by Joe’s employer before her dead body washed up. While the plot broadly involves political corruption, Joe’s concern is limited to the working women who end up chained to a wall until they meet their demise.

Joe’s detective work brings him close to the killer relatively quickly. Gordon employs a bit of misdirection as to the killer’s identity, but the universe of possible suspects is quite limited. This is a character-driven action story more than a whodunit.

Joe has fun pretending to be a person of wealth so he can hobnob with suspects of wealth. The impersonation is fun for the reader as well, as it gives Joe a chance to be sneaky and snarky. The action is typical movie fare, highlighted by a motorcycle chase and a few brawls.

The plot of The Wild Life isn’t particularly creative. As a middle-tier action novel, it doesn’t need to be. I suspect readers stick to this series because Joe is easy to like, the kind of morally flawed character whose virtues outweigh his questionable sense of morality. He enjoys reading, which makes him a sympathetic killer. And if he kills someone, the victim probably has it coming, at least in Joe’s calculus of good and evil.

Joe’s awkward relationship with the FBI agent adds interest to the story, as does the stereotyped collection of underworld leaders who, apart from running criminal organizations, share familiar qualities of older people who come together to play cards and gripe about younger people. The exception is Yelena, a younger Russian woman who took over her criminal organization in an earlier novel and who also has an awkward relationship with Joe — awkward for Joe, at any rate. The entire cast of characters and the unique nature of Joe as an underworld enforcer who does jobs that the police should be doing make the entire series enjoyable, even if no particular entry in the series stands out as better than the others.

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