Recently, a friend reminded me of my review, some years ago, of A Mighty Fortress, the first book in the Milo Porter mystery series by S. D. Thames. I had lost track of this author, so I checked to see if there were more books. And there is one. Nothing But the Blood was published in 2017. I note that there have been no further Milo Porter books. I hope the author hasn’t given up, because he writes my kind of story.
Milo Porter is a Gulf War veteran who now lives in Tampa and works as a private investigator and process server. He suffers from PTSD, which expresses itself in bad dreams, (possible) hallucinations, and risk taking. He’s a Christian, as are most of his friends, who are also (including his girlfriend) mostly weight lifters. Milo is a pretty good lifter himself, and has just set a record. During the big lift, he sees a vision of blood and of his personal guardian angel.
That vision motivates him to take a job he’s offered the same day. A representative of a major league football team hires him to watch a young player whom they plan to select in the upcoming draft. Milo encounters surprising hostility from the player and his entourage. But then the player dies in a highly suspicious weight lifting accident, and Milo finds a new client and a new challenge – to unravel a complicated, ruthless conspiracy of fraud.
I enjoyed Nothing But the Blood a little less than A Mighty Fortress, probably because the pro football world doesn’t interest me a lot. But I was again impressed with the author’s professional prose, good characterization and plotting, and skillful manner of incorporating Christian faith into a (mostly) realistic story. I recommend Nothing But the Blood, with the caution that this isn’t a Frank Peretti book. Which, from my point of view, is a good thing.
