The Root of All Evil

by Brandt Dodson

Book Overview

Brandt Dodson follows the success of the first two books in his Colton Parker Mysteryseriesa?Original Sin and Seventy Times Sevena'with another intriguing story. Wealthy businessman Berger Hume is... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0736918116
• ISBN13: 9780736918114
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Harvest House Publishers
• Length: 286 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Intriguing suspense set in Indianapolis

The plot to this PI mystery is filled with twists and turns that keep you guessing and wondering if Colton will be able to protect his charge and his child while unraveling who's behind the threat to one of the areas richest families. I liked how this book was not predictable and took the plot places I'd hoped it wouldn't go. The book had the hard-edged feel of a PI novel without diving into language to convey the coarseness of the characters. The characters - even the antagonists - had facets that made them human. Dodson didn't fall into the trap of making the characters cardboard props to the plot. And I wasn't expecting the son of an extremely wealthy man to be so far removed from his father's world. Yet he still had that hole in his life that made him long to know if his father could love him. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and it is not the last book of Dodson's I will read.

4 1/2 Stars...Further Proof

Once again, Brandt Dodson serves up a mystery in the grand tradition. "The Root of All Evil" reunites readers with Colton Parker, the fearless man of few words, the former FBI agent turned private eye. This time, Parker is hired to track down a possible heir to a fortune. There are others who have much to gain--and lose--in this scenario. Blackmail, corruption, and biker gangs converge in this tense story, and Parker is just the man to unravel the threads of deceit. Like Raymond Chandler, Dodson has a way of writing tight dialogue that seems masculine and deceptively emotionless, while in actuality he is painting the undersides of his story with a true sense of humanity and pathos. Although I found myself more caught up in the personal drama of his last book, "Seventy Times Seven," this third installment is further proof that Dodson deserves to be around for a long time. If you haven't yet discovered the world of Colton Parker, it's time to do so. Start here. Or go back to "Original Sin" and follow Parker's story in chronological order. Either way, you won't be disappointed.

Great Private Eye Fiction

Berger Hume is very ill and he has unfinished business. Years ago Berger had an affair which resulted in the birth of a child. Now he wants to make amends and possibly change his will. He hires Colton Parker, PI, to find his unknown son. Colton, who as usual, is struggling to keep his business afloat, knows finding the guy will be a long shot, but he needs the money. What should be a routine case turns downright nasty when Colton succeeds in finding the missing son. The guy won't any awards for good behavior, and he has a list of enemies who want him dead, and don't mind killing Colton if he gets in their way. Suddenly he has his hands full, trying to keep the son alive long enough to meet his father. Brandt Dodson comes from a long line of police officers, and reading one of his books is like being allowed to sit in on a real investigation. His writing is tight and loaded with suspense. Root Of All Evil is book three in the Colton Parker series. If you want private eye mysteries as they should be written, look no farther. Brandt Dodson just keeps getting better.

Action-packed with a capital A

Have you ever picked up a book and within the first five pages you know it's a winner? That's the way it is with Brandt Dodson's Root of All Evil. Colton Parker was fired from the FBI, spent five years on the Chicago Police Department and now runs his own investigation firm. He has been described as "a brash, insolent, narrow-minded ex-cop" that has the "subtlety of a jackhammer in a funeral parlor." He is hired by Berger Hume, a multimillionaire who helped put Indianapolis on the map, but is now a frail, dying man. Hume wants Parker to find out if a man, Miles Poole, is truly his son. If he is, he wants to meet Poole before he dies, which according to doctors could be very soon. All Parker has to do is find Poole, talk to him and convince him to have DNA testing. Piece of cake, right? No problem. The hunt for Miles Poole, alias 'Pork Chop,' is not exactly an easy one. Pork Chop is not what you would call an upstanding pillar of the community--and he has many enemies. Parker finds him, but then there are lots of twists, turns and deaths along the way to confirming that Pork Chop is Berger Hume's son. This is an action-packed tale that includes bombs, shootings, backstabbing, gangs and much more. As the investigation goes onward it becomes more and more complicated. At one point two officials stop Parker on a jog and ask for his private detective license. They inform him there was a "discrepancy" in the paperwork that was previously overlooked. This doesn't stop Colton Parker from digging deeper and deeper to find out if Poole is truly Hume's son and more. Armchair Interviews says: Catch your breath...and then read on.

Brandt Dodson Scores Again With Root of All Evil

Following on the heels of his success in Original Sin and Seventy-Times Seven, Brandt Dodson scores another hit with his third entry into the Colton Parker series, Root of All Evil. In Colton Parker, Dodson has found a twentieth century incarnation of the classic pavement-pounding gumshoe, who struggles not only with the difficulties of being a single parent, but also with his anger at God for taking his wife from him. Best of all, Parker is a realistic portrayal of the struggle a man must endure to truly trust in Christ; Dodson could've easily led Parker to a formulaic salvation at the end of his first novel, Original Sin, but instead Parker still struggles with his faith and putting his trust in God, promising the reader fertile fields for more character development and growth. Millionaire businessman Berger Hume is dying, and he has one last request: to find the illegitimate son he coldly denied in his youth and finally make restitution, to do right by the child he once denied as his own. At first, it seems like a fairly easy case for Colton - find the missing son, swap some DNA, cash the huge check he's been given - and move on to the next case. However, when he finally tracks down the most likely candidate - a Harley biker with the improbable nickname Pork Chop - and sets up a clandestine, nighttime meeting, all Colton gets for his trouble is a hail of bullets, and his ailing Ford Escort shot full of lead. Never one to back down from a little gunplay or violence, Parker plunges deeper into the mystery, which turns out to be a gang-land "rabbit-hole" of Alice In Wonderland proportions. One clue leads to another, and when Parker eventually does find Hume's son, he also finds much more than he bargained for: a gangland conspiracy with connections to the local mafia, corrupt politicians - even law enforcement, which hits close to home when Parker gets his P.I. license suspended, forcing him to work the rest of the case without the proper authority - something that could land him into ever deeper trouble than he's already in. Add that Hume's sons Denton and Warren aren't especially enthusiastic about finding their half brother and splitting their expected inheritance with him, Hume's strangely cold and calculating personal assistant, Ms. Carmichael, and a potentially shady deal involving selling off the Hume family's ailing hotel business, and you have a tightly convoluted, intriguing mystery worthy of the crime fiction badge. Throughout it all, Parker continues to wonder how he'll be able to keep his head above the cesspool waters he must tread by necessity, and how he can continue to provide for his daughter Callie - who's turning into a young lady right before his very eyes, all without her mother. Root of All Evil stands as best in class for recent crime fiction offerings, and the best of the Colton Parker series yet. Dodson continues to write about the law enforcement and private investigation worlds convincingly, and though Parke