Steady As She Goes Debut Thriller

The Ninth District - A Thriller by Douglas Dorow

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Steady As She Goes Debut Thriller

The Ninth District: An FBI Thriller by Douglas Dorow starts with a horrific crime. A masked gunman shoots a pregnant woman in a bank and salutes the financial institution’s cameras. From that set-up, veteran FBI Special Agent Jack Miller teams up with the new kid on the block Agent Ross Fruen to crack this Minneapolis case.

From scouring videotapes of the crime with Junior, aka Fruen, Miller pieces together a motive to the criminal known only as Governor. While the agents work the various angles of the tapes and the case, Jack finds himself on the outside looking in with his wife Julie and kids Willy and Lynn. He wants to reconcile but she’s not so sure it’s a good idea now.

So, just what does the Governor want? It’s here that throughout the novel Dorow takes the reader on an underground journey around Minneapolis and its connections with various landmarks, bridges, and the Mississippi River.

Peril surrounds Miller, Fruen and those associated with them. The Governor isn’t all that far off from ending their pursuit. Two good scenes of suspense elevate the danger and an additional one I thought would lead to an even more harrowing story stopped short of that expected path. It’s called a red herring and I get that Dorow didn’t expand it further for the narrative pace's sake.

What disappointed me a bit, however, was the harrowing conclusion. It read rushed. I wanted more from it so with that expectation it fell a little flat for me.

Overall, The Ninth District: An FBI Thriller was a good straight forward Miller-Fruen story. However, because of a character's change in status a sequel may or may not happen.





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