Cheater - Hardcover

Ken Goddard is currently the director of the National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory.

There's merry hell to pay when a high-level CIA plot to gather illegal intelligence at a conference on the global trade in endangered species comes undone--in a bizarre but lively sixth thriller from Goddard (Wildfire, 1994, etc.), currently the director of the National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory . To the despair and frustration of agency officials, one of their prized assets has gone into business for himself. Known only as Digger, the rogue operative is greatly esteemed for his ability to break into almost any building or computer system. Unfortunately, though, Digger (whose sobriquet derives from his tunneling expertise) is also a sociopath who delights in killing pets and people while burgling upscale homes in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. Arrested for murdering a German Interpol officer and his family, Digger is sent to a mental institution for observation. In the course of the commitment proceedings, he becomes convinced that Henry Culver, the Fairfax County criminalist whose testimony has kept him in custody, did not play fair with the evidence. When CIA mercenaries spring Digger from the asylum, his twisted sense of equity sets him on a vendetta. Meantime, Culver's new boss, a bent cop named Theodore Gauss, has purloined Digger's PC, cracked its software codes, and assumed command of the housebreaking crew the artful dodger directed via computer. Then Digger begins taking revenge on those he believes have done him wrong. Despite leaving a bloody trail, the fugitive psycho keeps at bay both his erstwhile masters at the CIA and the local police force (confused by the unsuspected perfidy of Gauss). With an assist from Charles L'Que (a French colonel assigned to security duties at the wildlife conference), the cerebral Culver eventually tracks Digger to his lair in a subterranean cavern and arranges appropriate comeuppances for other villains of the piece. A wealth of violent action, outer-edge plotting, and authentic detail on what lab guys really look for at a crime scene. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.