The Bootlegger by Clive Cussler
Script error: No such module "AfC submission catcheck".
The Bootlegger (Isaac Bell Series #7) copywrite 2014-(posted 5/21/21) It is 1920, and both Prohibition and bootlegging are in full swing. When Isaac Bell’s boss and lifelong friend Joseph Van Dorn is shot and nearly killed participating in a high-speed chase of a rum-running vessel while on a US Coast Guard cutter and he barley survives then he calls in Bell to run the Van Dorn Detective Agency and to help it survive as it is getting full of corrupt agents being bought off by rumrunner money and they are about to lose a US Coast Guard contract for services and have no other government contracts on the horizon until he recovers. Bell swears to his mentor, friend and boss that he will hunt down the lawbreakers who shot him, clean up the detectives and save the firm financially, but he doesn’t know what he is getting into. Then a witness to who shot Van Dorn and is in hospital is executed in a ruthlessly efficient manner invented by the Russian secret police, it becomes clear that these are no ordinary criminals. Bell is up against a team of Bolshevik assassins and saboteurs—and they are intent on overthrowing the government of the United States and using profits from taking over the illegal rum business in NYC to do it. Because Bell’s long-time friend and fellow Van Dorn agent Archibald “Archie” Angell Abbott IV is tied up in Europe keeping that branch of the Agency operating a new agent from the Berlin office, the very beautiful and luring Pauline Grandzan is requested to come to NYC to help straighten out the organization. Pauline has as bit of crush on Bell and that causes bit of conflict until Bell makes it clear he only has eyes for wife Marion Morgan and Marion gets picture deals in NYC so she can come back from California to kept Bell’s mind honest. Also, to take over the Detroit Van Dorn office and clean out the corrupt agents and get it back on its feet Bell enlists the help of his old friend and ex-Agent Walt Texas “Tex” Hatfield who has become a big Cowboy movie Star in California and he convinces him to take a leave of absence and clean up the operation. Bell even enlists his collection through his bank president father to the studio head in California to get them to give Tex the leave. The bad guys turn out to be a trio of Bolsheviks, one a rich and board socialite Fern Hawley, and Russian agent Marat Zolner (also known as Prince Andre) who has been sent to America by the Soviet government to spout a communist revolution. And another Russian agent Yuri Antipov who is sent to America when the government thinks Zolner is getting to corrupt by the money and not promoting the revolution. Bell gets into the middle of this groups schemes to start labor unrest and after they have a somewhat symbolic explosion on Wall Street his Van Dorn interference drives Zolner to Detroit to take on better opportunities. But Bell follows Zolner to Detroit and Antipov has been killed and finished in the bomb blast so now Zolner is again operating on his own. In Detroit he tries to take over the local booze business and finds a tunnel being finished for Canada so there can be year around secret shipments of booze to supply the speakeasys. But Bell finds out and he has an explosive pack of dynamite exploded over the tunnel and stops that supply. Zolner who is in the tunnel at the time barely escapes death, but now knowing Bell has stopped him in Detroit he takes off to Miami to meet up with Fern and to initiate what he thinks will be his saving grace in Moscow. Bell follows him to Miami and Pauline and Bell convince Fern she is being manipulated by the communist revolution and especially by Zolner and she reals that a tanker full of alcohol has come from Europe and it is not going to be used to cut brand whiskey for the bootleg market but for some outer operation that Zolner has planned. A hurricane comes in and Fern’s yacht is lost at sea so she will not have to face being tried as a revolutionary. At the same time Zolner in his modified rumrunner boat and Bell in his improved version of the modified boat that was instrumental in the attack on the Coast Guard cutter where Van Dorn was wounded chase the tanker up the coast to NYC. Just off of NYC Bell and Zolner and the tanker meet up and Bell and Zolner have a gun battle with their supped-up boats, but Zolner wins and Bell’s boat catches on fire by incendiary bullets and he has to break off the fighting and heads into NY harbor. In the harbor he goes to the amphibian airport and he and young agent Asa take off in his seaplane with enough grenades to bomb the ship before Zolner can drive it up to the foot of Wall street and explode the alcohol to destroy Wall Street and make him that hero in Moscow. Bell tries bombing the tanker but Zolner using the ships machine gun with incendiary bullets sets his plane on fire and he has to crash it on the tanker. Bell and Zolner get into a fight and Bell is barely holding his own but he does get off a shot into the stash of incendiary bullets and it explodes the bow of the tanker and starts a series of explosions that stop it and sink it before it gets to Wall Street. Bell grabs up Asa who has been knocked out and jumps overboard and is picked up by his friend and granddaughter who coming in with a rum run see Bell’s airplane and stop to watch the battle and to pick up Bell when they see him jump overboard. Battle over, Bell has stopped the communist revolution and Van Dorn is recovering to take over the Agency and Van Dorn’s wife Dorothy is starting up a women’s group to get rid of probation.
References[edit]
Goodreads
This article "The Bootlegger by Clive Cussler" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:The Bootlegger by Clive Cussler. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
