Set shortly after the Soviet Union imploded, this international intrigue takes FBI agent Jay Porter into Poland. There he’s quickly involved in a case where three men have been found dead on a riverbank. All have a minor genetic deformity: a stub of a sixth finger. The more pressing concern, however, is that they all have radioactive hands. Then the fourth courier appears …

Porter and CIA agent Kurt Crawford along with their Polish counterparts are concerned about the security of nuclear material stockpiled by the USSR during the Cold War. Power in the Communist countries now lies in the hands of a Mafia-esque cohort composed of former intelligence and military men.

The cast is interesting. First, General Drako Mladic, the head of Yugoslavia Secret Services. He dreams of being the next leader of his country and plans to consolidate his power by buying the most dangerous weapon imaginable. Dr. Sergej Ustinov is a Russian scientist who has developed a portable nuclear bomb and thus can answer Mladic’s prayers. The Director of Organized Crime, Basia Husarska, is a femme fatale well-worthy of such that descriptor. She beds Mladic and anyone else necessary to achieve her personal goal of escaping Poland. CIA agent Kurt Crawford is the gay black male version of Husarska who doesn’t hesitate to use his sexuality or his coloring—a rarity in Poland—to gain information. The protagonist, Jay Porter, handles his current case while, in the background, dealing his divorce and custody battle and looking toward a new love.

The Fourth Courier is well-plotted with murders, crosses, and double-crosses enough to snag any reader’s interest. Smith captures the late-winter gloom of Poland as well as the edgy nervousness of the 1990s post-Cold War uncertainty in the Communist bloc. As someone who grew up with parents who considered putting in a bomb shelter, The Fourth Courier played upon those uncertainties. Though at times the writing was a bit superficial, it was action-packed from start to finish and kept me turning pages. 

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The Fourth Courier will be released by Arcade on April 2, 2019. Currently it is available for preorder from Amazon and B&N.