It is mid 1997 and Canadian Jean Val Fincoeur, industrial show businessman, multi media project manager is ready for his 3 week vacation. Leaving his miniature collie Sam in the care of neighbor Dave Jean Val and four friends set out for the fifty year celebration held in Roswell, New Mexico. Errol Bruston, his lady friend Sharon, John Mardon, Patrick Tambler and Jean Val look forward to meeting and perhaps having a chance to get more information about what really took place there in Roswell back in 1947. Meanwhile private investigator Patrice Fincham is busy in her own business, she and associate Cathy Reesor are on the hunt for Sharon Polker who seems to have disappeared.

A meeting with Frank Malley who was part of the military team that shot down the foreign craft in 1947 ultimately leads to Patrick’s death and a widespread police search for Jean Val. Jean Val and his friends have discovered that the US Air Force did indeed perpetrate a cover up in 1947 and now the CIA is determined that that cover up remain in place. Patrice has troubles of her own as she continues her search for Captain Polker who has been listed as MIA since 1947 and stumbles over the realization that Great Britain and the former Soviet Union were involved in code name ‘Common Foe’.

David Furlotte’s prowess as a writer has only improved with this his second in the Fincoeur – Fincham series. Common Foe is a distinctively wrought narrative filled with conspiracy, complicity and machination as writer Furlotte presents a intricate tale filled with robust incentives, treachery and outright chicanery. Furlotte’s remarkably engineered account is balanced against a environment of exhilarative action, a keenly focused series of events and well drawn characters. Dialogue is potent, effective as the well fleshed characters face mounting danger with an ever enlarging sense of jeopardy.

Writer Furlotte’s use of language is exquisite, grabs the reader from the opening lines of the prologue and holds interest tight over page after page of rollicking action. The Fincoeur character is a likeable one, Jean Val is a personality the reader can really come to know and like. The Patrice Fincham character has been further developed since the initial publication. Patrice is a woman we can admire. Together the two engender an exciting electricity as the pair once more bumble across one another in their separate strands of the tale. I particularly like the way writer Furlotte takes two separate but related tales and weaves them and their characters into a single strand. It is an interesting, and often difficult technique to master. Furlotte has mastered the technique to perfection.

Excellent read. Happy to recommend.