"After investigation came retribution, vindictive and indiscriminate."

It’s the early 1980’s and the height of the Cold War when Steve Donovan, despite a checkered past, troubled marriage and no prospects, lands a job at the very bottom of the intelligence world. He finds a kind of happiness being involved with shady people in unsavory activities until he is suddenly promoted over the heads of fifty-nine colleagues by his Section chief, who is himself being promoted.

Steve’s boss Frank is handing him the responsibility for Charlemagne, the premier freelance specialist team used by western governments for black operations conducted without fingerprints. The deadly team has filled several drawers at a Chicago morgue and Steve and Frank fly out to investigate why.

With three days left until Christmas, their investigation uncovers tragedies, past, present and perhaps, yet to come in their own futures. Frank appears to be the next target, but is Steve as well? It is difficult to tell, because truth is hard to come by and deception obscures everything and everyone they speak to. Loyalties are hidden, moral codes nonexistent.

Can Steve convince Charlemagne not to kill his boss without putting himself likewise in the crosshairs of their revenge? And just how far is he willing to go the save the innocent?

Cetus Wedge is the second book in the series titled The Charlemagne Files, which chronicles the lives of the members of a team of deadly Cold War intelligence operatives over a span of three decades.

Justin Hewitt