Jack agrees, knowing this is exactly the sort of thing that will get him his deal, and without hesitation sets it up. The Feds are suspicious of his apparently altruistic motives, the love of a son, but go along with it and make plans to set up a sting that puts Jack on a road he could never have imagined.

On a parallel course and running straight into the ATF sting, are Casey Spandau and a team of Joint Task Force investigators. Casey has joined the force (known as the Jay Rats) after slapping around a District Attorney who was asking for it. She catches a call from upstate cop Nicky Cicero who is looking for a blue Mercedes Benz involved in an accident upstate. After some legwork, Nicky and Casey are also on the trail of Earl Pike, who thinks he's too clever to be caught by anyone. Soon, all the roads converge and after throwing in an ambitious Federal Attorney and some local Mafia, both investigations backfire into Jack’s and Casey's faces.

Black Water Transit is a fast-paced novel as the action switches from New York City to upstate New York, told in hours over the course of only several days. Stroud's characters are tightly written, and all will be suspect to readers as they reveal their different sides. The only unbelievable parts to Earl and Jack might be their sentimentality, Jack toward his son, Earl toward his guns, and their willingness to let that cloud their judgment or be off their guard. Nicky is especially interesting as he arrives in the city young and naïve but quickly catches on very well.

The plot continues to shift and twist until no one is sure who is setting up whom and who should be believed. The mob connection seems a bit contrived and clichéd at times, but ultimately Stroud ties it in with the rest of the plot and makes it work. Black Water Transit is a novel that combines not only high action and fancy foot work but involves a lot of serious thinking and deducing to solve a very complex case.

--Jennifer Monahan Winberry