Until It’s Gone-Karen Wiesner

Until It’s Gone
Karen Wiesner
Uncial, Feb 2009, $13.99
www.uncialpress.com
ISBN: 9780578013688

DEA undercover agent Mitch Taylor spent twenty years working his way up the ladder of the Ortega drug cartel until he became the right hand man to Carson Ortega, cousin of the untouchable top gun Mareno Ortega. To destroy the entire leadership, Mitch was arrested and convicted of drug trafficking; he was sentenced to thirty months, but served only nineteen. Los Angeles DEA Filed Office Assistant Special Agent in Charge Eric Bradshaw gets him released early so he can return as Carson’s number one man.

However, he is tired of being a puppet pulled by two puppeteers and wants out as he also believes his only friend Snake should be able to vanish too. Mitch distrusts Bradshaw even more than Ortega. Now Brenda Bennett is at his house; the one person who could actually destroy him although she is out of his league. She shakes him to the core when she informs him he is the daddy of a ten month old daughter, Haylee Julia; a by-product of getting his beloved to hate him. Mitch now has two female reasons for wanting out, but neither the DEA nor the Ortega mob will let him just walks away.

This may be the best of the Wounded Warrior saga so far, which is saying a lot as that is a super series. Mitch is a terrific protagonist who has harmed innocent people as part of his realistic cover, but even before Brenda’s pronouncement he had doubts about right vs. wrong as he reconsiders his side's values as they assume the end justifies any mean. Brenda has issues also, but this is clearly Mitch’s tribulation with no hope for redemption. Fans will relish this powerful gritty entry.

Harriet Klausner