Into the Fire

Uppercut by Mark Dawson is Book 22 in the "A John Milton Novel" Series. 

John Milton is back in Dublin searching for clues on the Group 15 agent who betrayed Control and her party of agents plus Milton in Russia, leading to the capture of Control. He's fairly certain he's going to somehow have to find where Control was taken, if she's still alive, and rescue her since he now knows the woman who betrayed them all lied about it and has risen in the ranks of Group 15. Ziggy Penn, computer genius, who's helping John however he can, has found the ex-husband of the agent in order to gain more information about her. Interference with their plans results in a war between Irish mob leaders over two cage-fighters, one of them being the son of one mob leader.

When a dirty cop gets in deep with the mobster whose son is set to fight his rival's choice in the MMA competition, the gangster "Gallagher" wants his son's opponent and the agent that chose him over Gallagher's son dead at the weigh-in, a gala event at the hotel owned by his rivals, the Dillon Brothers. The cop uses blackmail to convince a trying-to-go-straight felon to do the deed. 

Milton is once again working under the alias of Eric Blair as a chef and will be pulled from the kitchen on the night of the big event because there are too few waiters to meet the obnoxious needs of the large gathering. As he's tending to impatient customers, he spots the man with a gun, everything goes haywire, and two people wind up dead. In the midst of the craziness, John hustles a young girl away from the chaos and upstairs to the apartment of a woman with whom he works. She agrees to help the girl until they can find out who she is and where she belongs since she can't or won't speak.

In the meantime, Group 15 is searching for John and are closing in on locating him. The dirty cop wants the young girl for Gallagher to use for leverage, but John figures something is off with the cop and spirits the girl away with help from the woman. 

There's a lot going on in Uppercut, but it still feels like an interim story which will lead to Mark's next Milton novel Bloodlands. Milton's on the run again along with Ziggy, and now he knows for sure he's being pursued by Group 15 because of the lies told by the traitorous agent. This story sports mobster stereotypes with a twist and some latent justice, a Group Agent who lies to herself about her need to be a traitor, and some less than noble Dublin police. 

I'll be looking forward to Bloodlands in hopes of a rescue for Control and real justice for the traitorous agent.

(Some profanity.) 

Father, you know all hearts and minds. Nothing surprises or gets past you. Please continue to bless Mark and fill him with stories you have just for him to tell. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.