Detective Frank Yakabuski has a real mess on his hands- there are a LOT of diamonds out there on (or buried under) the Mission Road and a LOT of bad guys who want them. There's not point in trying to summarize this except to say that it's an action packed tale that's not really a mystery. There are gangs, there are bikers, there are villains of all sorts. There's a lot of violence. Everyone wants those diamonds and many of them will do pretty much anything to get them. Some of this is unrealistic but it's also a very readable page turner. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

It was a gripping and entertaining read, well written and with a cast of interesting characters.
Even it's not the first in a series I had no issue with the plot or the characters.
I look forward to reading the next, recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Mission Road by Ron Corbett is the third installment of the Detective Frank Yakabuski series. At the end of the previous novel Cape Diamond, 1.2 billion dollars in diamonds are stolen and the mystery takes off from there. Frank Yakabuski is the law on the Northern Divide which is a continental divide in central North America. He will need to solve the theft of all those diamonds which, rumor has it, have been hidden on Mission Road, an old logging road. All kinds of characters come to town as modern diamond prospectors, dreaming of riches. Also present are vicious criminals who join the fray. All of this provides the reader with an extensive list of characters, sometimes adding confusion. The body count is unrealistic and, if you are bothered by excessive violence, this may not be for you. There is plenty of activity and the reader will not be bored: this is an action-packed mystery. Thank you to ECW Press and NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was surprised to see how well I could follow along considering I didn't read the first two in this installment. It was good pacing and executing.

I would like to thank Netgalley and ECW Press for an advance copy of Mission Road, the third novel set in Canada’s Northern Divide to feature Senior Detective Frank Yakabuski.

The theft of $1.2 billion’s worth of uncut diamonds attracts hoards of treasure hunters to the town of Springfield and more specifically the Mission Road logging road area where the diamonds are rumoured to be hidden. Unfortunately for Yak not all the hunters are well intentioned and soon he is hunting killers as well as the diamonds.

I thoroughly enjoyed Mission Road which tells the tale of the aftermath of the heist and various efforts to secure the loot. Firstly it should be noted that it is a big, if not enormous, ask of the reader to believe that two men could drive on to an airfield, steal so much from an unsecured plane and drive away unhindered and yet, somehow, it doesn’t really matter. Perhaps it is the matter of fact attitude and tone that does it - it happened so let’s move on to the repercussions and boy, are there repercussions, murder, mayhem, gangsters and stone cold killers, not to mention backstabbing, double dealing and betrayal. It’s a heady, exciting broth all told in the same matter of fact voice.

The plot follows several characters, some incidental but mostly those germane to the plot, as they follow the sparkling lure of the diamonds, and Yak as he tries to untangle not only how the heist went down but how the main players interlink and their exact angle in the ensuing mayhem. It takes some close reading as not all the roles and angles are immediately apparent. In fact, the clearest thing in the novel is Yak’s thinking and logic. I must admit that I was a little disappointed in the ending as it is a bit touchy-feely and aspirational after all the preceding violence and general mayhem. I didn’t see it myself.

Mission Road is a good read that I can recommend.