The Bitter Past

February 1, 2023

In Nevada's achingly beautiful high desert, Porter Beck serves as sheriff (as his father once did), and not much happens until a retired FBI agent is found tortured to death. Clues point to the 1950s Soviet infiltration of a nearby nuclear testing site and the hunt for a long-missing individual crucial to events. A series start-up; with a 60,000-copy first printing. Prepub Alert.

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May 15, 2023
An unspeakably brutal contemporary murder has roots in the 1950s. Sheriff Porter Beck, whose jurisdiction is sparsely populated Lincoln County, north of Las Vegas, is called to the scene of a singularly savage crime. Retired FBI agent Ralph Atterbury has been bound to the recliner in his home and systematically tortured. Beck and his team have barely begun their investigation when the FBI storms in, in the person of stylish, no-nonsense Special Agent Sana Locke. Interspersed flashbacks take the story to 1955, when destined lovers Freddie Meyer and Kitty Ellison meet at the newly opened Dunes Hotel and Casino, where they both work. Through a family friend, Kitty helps Freddie get a job at the nearby atomic testing site. The more elaborate third-person prose of these chapters plays nicely against Beck's more direct first-person narrative. Borgos' debut is solidly anchored in the lively banter between Beck and Locke, who soon give in to their sexual chemistry. More deaths add urgency to the investigation. The 1950s plot, which centers around nuclear testing and the mysterious Project 57, thickens when the ingenuous Freddie is introduced to Georgiy, a Russian whose malevolence will be instantly apparent to everyone but him. This plotline, though interesting, is more successful as history than mystery. Along the way, this series kickoff introduces Beck's elderly dad and his team of deputies, Wardell, Pete, and Tuffy, the latter of whom proves the most valuable of the three. A clever plot twist gives the third act a welcome infusion of energy. A solid crime story with an evocative sense of place.

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May 15, 2023
Borgos’s atmospheric debut, the start of a series focused on Nevada sheriff Porter Beck, is a clever, spy-flavored mystery. Forced to retire from the Army for medical reasons, Beck has returned home to Lincoln County, Nev., to help care for his dementia-stricken father. Beck’s expertise on Russia from his military service proves unexpectedly useful when he’s called to investigate the gruesome murder of retired FBI agent Ralph Atterbury. The assailant tied Atterbury to his recliner, skinned his extremities, pulled out his teeth, and blowtorched his face. Beck is sure that the killing wasn’t random, a conviction buttressed by the arrival of Sana Locke, whom the FBI has sent from D.C. to help him investigate. Locke shares that, in the 1950s, the KGB sent a spy to Nevada to learn about the atomic testing program being run near Lincoln County. In the ’60s, the operative began cooperating with U.S. intelligence—and Atterbury was the Russian double agent’s last FBI handler. In toggling timelines, Borgos paints a vivid picture of midcentury Cold War espionage and slowly reveals how its consequences reverberate to the present. Intelligent storytelling and well-drawn characters bode well for future series entries. Agent: Janet Reid, Janet Reid Literary.

Starred review from May 1, 2023

DEBUT Borgos writes a compelling story with two timelines and elements of mystery, espionage, and history. Sheriff Porter Beck of Lincoln County, NV, was in the Army for 20 years, but he's never seen anything like the torture and murder of FBI agent Ralph Atterbury. He suspects that Ralph's killer didn't find the files the retired agent might have hidden. When FBI agent Sana Locke shows up, she gives Beck just enough information to realize he's looking for a killer with connections to the past. In the 1950s and for decades afterward, there were nuclear tests in the area. The KGB sent one man to infiltrate the test sites, but that spy was horrified when he saw the results of the nuclear tests. He took action, but not in the way the KGB expected. Over 60 years later, someone is looking for that man, presumed to be in his 80s. When a young woman disappears, Beck realizes it's a distraction to divide his small team. Beck calls on family members to protect the unidentified former spy and take down a well-armed opponent. VERDICT This riveting debut has traces of Craig Johnson's novels, with the personal nuclear fallout in Betty Webb's Desert Wind.--Lesa Holstine

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