Heat - Stuart Woods

   1994; 448 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Suspense; Thriller.  Overall Rating : 6*/10.

 

    Strange things seem to be going on up in the little town of St. Clair, Idaho.  It appears to involve lots of money and lots of guns, all seemingly under the direction of some crazy coot named Jack Gene Coldwater.

 

    The United States Attorney General’s Office wants someone to investigate Coldwater’s activities.  Unfortunately, the last two agents that were sent to St. Clair have disappeared without a trace, and are presumed dead.

 

    The government needs to find somebody else to send up there, but ordering agents to go on suicide missions is bad for morale.  They need to find someone… erm… disposable.

 

    Say, how about that disgraced DEA agent Jesse Warden, currently serving time in Atlanta Federal Prison? He was convicted of stealing drug money and killing a fellow agent in the process to cover it up, and he’s been in solitary for 14 months now.  Let’s talk him into “volunteering.”

 

    If his cover gets blown and Coldwater offs him, so what?  If he somehow succeeds, we can grant him a pardon.  Alternatively, after he gives us the incriminating evidence we can expose him to Coldwater's goons, and let them have the pleasure of killing another government agent.

 

What’s To Like...

    Heat is a Thriller novel by Stuart Woods, an author whose work I’ve wanted to get acquainted with for a while now.  Woods, who died in 2022, was a prolific writer, with (according to Wikipedia) seven series under his belt, including the 64-volume "Stone Barrington" series, his most famous work.  Heat, however, is a standalone story.

 

    The plotline is straightforward: Jesse wants to infiltrate the inner circle of Coldwater’s trusted council, learn what their aims are, and hopefully find something illegal enough to exchange for a government pardon.  Along the way he meets an attractive and available woman (Jesse is a widower), searches for the daughter that’s been taken from him, and tries to outmaneuver his former DEA boss who’d love to see Jesse be exposed and killed.

 

    I liked the “religious cult” atmosphere that Stuart Woods explores.  St. Clair is a small town totally devoted to Coldwater’s apocalyptic visions.  Everyone in town goes to his church every Sunday, and all the children are schooled in his teachings.  It’s very reminiscent of David Koresh’s Branch Davidians cult in Waco, Texas, or Jim Jones’s cult in Jonestown, Guyana, both of which ended in tragedy.  Koresh and his followers died in an ATF raid in 1993; Jones’s followers “drank the Kool-aid” and committed mass suicide in 1978.  I loved the way Stuart Woods depicts this sort of brainwashing.

 

    All the standard action-adventure tropes are present.  Jesse and his attractive-yet-unattached landlord Jenny fall in love, one of Coldwater’s right-hand aides remains convinced Jesse is a government spy (which he is), and there’s a long, drawn-out, north-to-south chase scene down the entire state of Nevada.  For the record, I’ve made that trek recently; Nevada is fricking huge!

 

    The ending is so-so.  On the plus-side, it’s sufficiently exciting and even has a plot twist or two.  On the minus side, it strained my “believability” tolerance, most markedly when Jesse’s imminent death is averted by a conveniently-timed disturbance that distracts his killer.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 2,385 ratings and 242 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.11/5 based on 3,476 ratings and 138 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “I’m moving up in the world,” Jesse said.  “Making nine bucks an hour, now, and I expect to get raised to ten any day.”  He told Kip about the promotion.

     “Glad to hear it, Jess.”

    “Not everybody is as happy as you are about my advancement,” Jesse replied.  “Fellow called Partain took exception.”

    “And what did you do about it?” Kip asked, sounding worried.

    “I hit him until he got over it,” Jesse replied.  (loc. 1630)

 

    “You know, Charley, it might have been interesting.  Up until the time we met in solitary, I had just been trying to stay alive.  But I think that after our chat, I would have started killing people, and you would have been first in line.”

    Bottoms grinned.  “I like you, Jesse; I always did.  You always handled yourself real good in the yard; took out some guys I’d have thought would have stomped you into the ground.  I’d have hated to kill you, but I’d have done it the minute you set foot out of that cell.  I’m glad our present circumstances don’t require me to do that.”

    “That’s sweet of you, Charley.”  (loc. 3736)

 

Kindle Details…

    At present Heat sells for $9.99 at Amazon.  Dozens of Stuart Woods's books are available in e-book format, for the most part ranging in price from $7.99 to $14.99, and occasionally discounted to $1.99.

 

“Jesse, can you fly an airplane?”  “Sort of.”  (loc. 4670)

    I found some quibbles when reading Heat.  For those averse to R-rated stuff, there’s a moderate-but-acceptable amount of cussing (17 instances in the first 10%), a half-dozen or so racial epithets (which I expected), a roll-in-the-hay, and at least one cursory drug reference (coke).

 

    There were more typos than I’d expect in a book by a top-tier author: saia/said; night clothes/nightclothes; hanger/hangar, and four Weather by/Weatherby (Jenny’s last name) oopsies before someone belatedly noticed and started fixing them.

 

    But those are all trifles.  My big issue with Heat were the WTF’s.  The plotline was rife with them.  We eschew spoilers on this blog, but here are some of the mind-boggling conveniences:

 

    Jesse just happens to have lock-picking and safecracking skills, both of which he'll need during this mission.  Jesse’s "cover” identity is a real but dead person), and his first name also happens to be Jesse.  At one point Jesse needs to learn to fly an airplane, and one of the baddies obligingly teaches him.  Jesse somehow wins every fight he’s in, even against the goons in prison.  Last but not least, he's given a tour of Coldwater’s stronghold and then is  given the blueprints to it as well.

 

    I noted at least a dozen of these WTFs.  I could’ve sworn I was reading a Clive Cussler Dirk Pitt novel.  There's a reason why I don’t read Thrillers more often.

 

    6 Stars.  Admittedly, there are a lot of readers of this genre out there who love it when the action is over-the-top.  Clive Cussler caters to those fans with his ultra-popular Dirk Pitt series.  I read one book from that series (I forget which one) and felt no need to try a second.  OTOH, a coworker of mine has read them all, and wishes there were more in Dirk's 26-book (soon to be 27) adventures.