The Loud Adios

Ken Kuhlken

Four months before The Loud Adios begins, Tom Hickey discovers his business partner is cutting costs by cheating. Hickey stops it; the business closes. His wife, tired of Hickey's never getting ahead, leaves him and San Diego, going to New Jersey with his ex-partner. She takes their young teen daughter with her. Then Hickey returns to being a private investigator but is drafted into the military. It is 1943 and World War II is raging on both fronts. Now he stands evening shifts at the Tijuana California bridge as border patrol.

One of the young men in Hickey's squad is readying to leave for the Pacific front. Clifford Rose enlists Hickey's help. Rose drags Hickey down to one of the Tijuana stripper bars. There Rose loses control and tries to rescue a white girl for the second time. He then explains that the girl is his sister and she was kidnapped into servitude here in Tijuana. Hickey agrees to try to get her back to the United States.

But that is only half the story. Hickey discovers darker secrets in the Baja border country than a kidnapped sex slave. His biggest problem is not whether he will be court martialled but rather will he and his new friends survive the secrets they uncover.

Every once in a while I mention men's fiction versus women's fiction. The Loud Adios is definitely men's fiction in my opinion. It is dark, has many personal battles, a flawed hero, and the wording to appeal to men reading this genre. Yet it caught my interest and held me through. At times I felt it was outside my way of thinking - the male point of view, I'm sure. But the deeper Hickey digs the more he finds, which is a vital component for a good mystery. Full of action and gritty, Ken Kuhlken's novel will appeal to the right audience.

Notice: Graphic violence, Suggestive dialogue or situations

The Loud Adios
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The Do-Re-Mi
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