Target Lancer

It’s late October 1963, and there is a conspiracy at work to assassinate JFK. Except in Collins’s (Bye, Bye Baby) latest Nate Heller novel the plot is set in Chicago, not Dallas. Nate’s old PR man, Tom Ellison, has turned up dead shortly after Nate spent an evening watching Tom’s back. Nate spotted Jack Ruby that evening and so wonders whether Ellison’s death may have connections to the mob or to Operation Mongoose, the CIA-backed plot run by the Mafia to poison Castro. Then Nate is summoned to a secret meeting with Bobby Kennedy, who asks him to help the Secret Service as they investigate a conspiracy by snipers to assassinate the President as his motorcade travels through town. Collins has done his homework, as the Chicago plot was real, as are nearly all the characters other than Nate.