Title: Satan’s Stronghold
Author: Robert W. Gallant
Publisher: Robert W. Gallant Books
ISBN: 978-0578208091
Pages: 314
Genre: Fiction / Thriller
Reviewed by: Jake Bishop
Hollywood Book Review
A beaucoup of badass action fills the pages of Robert W. Gallant’s sweat soaked story of dirty dealings, dastardly men, and dangerous women. The main local is Louisiana in all of its southern fried, sultry ambience—which the author ably captures in a tasty jambalaya of drug dealing, mayhem and murder, with just a dash of sex and sadism to really spice things up. This is actually the inaugural novel in a series of suspense filled adventures that combine a pair of male and female protagonists hell-bent on making sure villains get exactly what they deserve.
Travis Weld runs a super secretive government operation intent on ridding the populace of high-level criminals and terrorists. He’s a hard-as-nails operator who is more than happy to save society from time-consuming trials that too often go awry and fail to punish the guilty. The cost of ammunition is a lot less than the cost of protracted criminal proceedings, so Weld is more than happy to end his cases with bullets instead of courtroom battles.
In Satan’s Stronghold, Weld recruits Chesney Barrett, a six-foot blonde who’s mental acuities are the equal of her physical attributes, which just happen to be devastating. Chesney’s an ex Olympic-quality swimmer who missed the games because her car was rammed by an escaping drug-dealer. Chesney wound up in the hospital for months, her mother wound up in the cemetery, and the bad dude wound up getting off. Her righteous indignation becomes a prime motivator for joining Weld’s team.
Weld sends Chesney undercover as a graduate student doing environmental research in the Pelican state’s Atchafalaya swamp. She’s actually there to find the exact location of a huge meth operation. Her job gets extremely complicated when the rich and handsome owner of one of Louisiana’s oldest plantations makes a play for her that includes not just sex but marriage too. Will Chesney fall for this modern day Rhett Butler? Is he actually a devil in disguise? Can the meth lab be located before it makes a huge shipment to the Midwest? And will the novice agent’s first assignment turn out to be her last?
Gallant is both a skillful storyteller and an excellent writer. He moves his narrative along at a rapid pace. His characters are highly memorable. His dialogue crackles with wit and sounds like real speech, not just plot exposition. He’s particularly adept at bringing to life the aura of Louisiana’s milieu. Cajuns drinking beer and having fun, water moccasins hanging from the branches of trees, old world gentility, uneducated loyalty, unrestrained cruelty—they all meld into an intriguing mosaic that adds color and life to the suspense and violence that goes on around them.
This is a compelling tale that sometimes blurs the lines between doing something wrong to achieve something right, but it continually delivers intensity from start to finish. If you are well traveled in the thriller genre, you’ll enjoy your trip down south to Satan’s Stronghold.