Justifiable: Oregon by Pamela Wright

Justifiable: Oregon. Pamela Wright. Reaction Press. July 2011. 298 pp. paperback. ISBN #: 9780983580935.

Tilamook Rock Lighthouse in Seaside, Oregon is a scary place all by itself, but what goes on inside this fortress is even more frightening than anyone could contemplate. For whoever is brought here in a drugged state is first subjected to tortured interrogation followed by death and cremation, with no traces left that anyone ever existed here. The cause is “justifiable” as the title of the series suggests, get the details of the crime and eliminate the criminals who would normally never be caught. The plot thickens as we learn that a current investigation has to do with a drug cartel who are pumping already superstar athletes with performance-enhancing chemical drugs that guarantee success. But there’s a huge problem when athletes start dropping dead and it’s discovered that what killed them is far from what was suspected by those testing for addicted champions.

The Doctor who is handing out these drugs has no idea of their real content and so is so stunned upon discovering what could not expose his guilt but prove to be his total undoing as an athlete physician caring for men and women expected to be “winners.” The threat of unexpected death looms in many quarters beyond what the reader can imagine at the beginning of this tautly plotted, nerve-wracking novel.

Dan Morrison knows this is way over his specialized skills and seeks help from others known as the Special Forces team, at the same time knowing that his progression deeper into this mystery could put his friend Sarah into a serious position of jeopardy. But even Dan realizes he doesn't know Sarah or her past so well, especially what she has sacrificed in the name of past missions as well as the present case. Traffickers and pedophiles are the subject at hand and the cartel doesn’t stop there. One team will search the world if necessary to find the lost and taken, eliminating the scum that preys on the weak and helpless.

Pamela Wright has penned a deftly plotted, well-written action novel in which all characters rivet the reader’s attention, up to the last shocking scene in a devastating war of in which the members of a righteous team forge through tense conflicts and scenarios and have no problem justifying their final solution! Gripping, plausible read! The scales of justice are balanced with a unique method of saving the innocent. Nicely done!