As the USA is fundamentally transformed into a third world police state, it’s hard not to notice that the police (local, state and federal) have been transforming before our eyes even faster. Depending on where you live, you might know a “good” cop or two. More often than not, though, police officers have been conditioned to be tools to carry out all sorts of missions except to serve and protect. My concern with this issue is what led me to slip this novel to the front of the line in my To Be Read queue.

Monte Turcott is a veteran recently returned to his home in Calumet County. He becomes a local hero when he stops a pointless shooting spree by killing the shooter. But the star of this novel is Sheriff Bear Ellis.

The irony in the behavior of government employees (from the White House down) is that they all are required to swear an oath to abide by the Constitution. Then they immediately set about violating every article and clause in it. Bear is a rarity in that he remembers his oath, and is convicted to keep it. But even though a county sheriff is theoretically accountable to the people of his county, and beholden to no higher official, Bear is under tremendous pressure from the jackbooted federal Gestapo (represented by the DEA in this case) to be a team player in the encroaching police state.

When the DEA raids the wrong house, killing Turcott’s wife, Bear finds himself caught in the middle of the struggle between the rule of law (to include due process) and the aspirations of the  alphabet soup Gestapo agencies. The situation is further complicated when the agent who killed the innocent woman is himself bumped off. There is no evidence against Turcott but the judge/jury/executioner Feds want to pin it on him anyway, and exact revenge.

If this sounds like a farfetched scenario, then you haven’t been paying attention. Yes, “law enforcement” is upside-down from what it was in the 1950s and earlier.

Grice did a good job getting inside the mind of a cop. Even the dying breed of “good” ones have been poisoned by relativistic rationale that puts loyalty to fellow LEOs above actually keeping their oaths. It must be severely difficult not to develop an “us vs. them” attitude regarding the people they are paid to serve and protect.

A very well-written novel, examining one little microcosm of what is happening/has happened to our republic.

P.S: None of the characters of this book belong to the official Oathkeepers organization.