Among my recently read books is Brett Battles latest Jonathan Quinn novel, The Buried.

I’ve been enjoying this series through the previous eight books, and this one was just as good, or better, than its predecessors.

As I’ve explained before, Jonathan Quinn, the hero, is a “cleaner.” He works for a private contractor that works with intelligence agencies, removing bodies and cleaning up sites where somebody has been liquidated. He’s not supposed to get into the action himself, but of course he often does, or there’d be no novels.

In The Buried, he comes to remove a body from a suburban American home, but about the time he shows up, the government assassin he’s supposed to clean up for discovers a secret chamber underneath the late target’s house. In the chamber they find cells containing four women, one of them dead.

Calling his boss for instructions, Quinn is instructed to call the police and leave, but to take one of the prisoners with him. It turns out this woman possesses a very important secret, and ruthless agents from around the world are competing to find her and extract that secret, by any means necessary. The rest of the story is strong on chases, one way and the other.

The Buried is great fun, especially because of a sort of running joke in the plot. Quinn’s partner (and wife) Orlando is extremely pregnant during this story, but can’t resist trying to participate in the action as if she were not. It’s her nature, as regular readers will recognize. Her continuing denial is not only funny, but contributes to the rising plot tension.

Recommended. Not too much objectionable stuff.