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Doing the Right Thing
Clifford’s War: Redivivus follows a seasoned private investigator pulled into a snowbound search for a missing young girl, only to find that this case goes far deeper than just a kidnapping. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The inspiration came from two ideas that simply worked well together. I knew I wanted to bring back the family he helped in Bluegrass Battleground. I felt that there was still meat on that bone. Without giving too much away, I will just say I also wanted to introduce someone from the past that no one, not even Clifford Dee, would see coming. They’re first mentioned in Bluegrass Battleground, and I wrote a callback to it in Redivivus for the hardcore fans to gasp at.
Clifford has that classic investigator steadiness but also feels observant and human. What kind of detective did you want him to be?
Clifford Dee is the kind of detective who values humanity and doing the right thing. He’s resourceful and treats everyone like they matter. There’s not enough of that trope in today’s “Thriller Hero,” and I wanted to really champion that type of character, the flawed moral compass that is Clifford Dee. He doesn’t need or want to be praised for the work he does. He elevates those around him to be better people and fights for them to be recognized.
The story grows to include tech, networks, conspiracies, and layered alliances. How did you keep the plot from collapsing under its own weight?
I believe that character development, dialogue, and action sequences help with the heavy-lifting. There was an immense amount of polishing to get it just right, but I think my editor, Elliot, and I nailed it.
I hope the series continues in other books. If so, where will the story take readers?
There will be more to the Clifford’s War Universe. Without End and Redivivus left us with a lot of story still needing to be told. Additionally, my co-author for Tye, Elliot J. Emerson, has begun writing her own series set in the same universe, which highlights some of the side characters introduced in Bluegrass Battleground. She is helping craft this world, and it’s shaping up to be something for the ages. We are both very excited for the future of Clifford Dee, his friends, and this continuing “War.”
Clifford’s War: Redivivus
Clifford’s War: Redivivus begins as a missing-person thriller and quickly widens into something knottier: after Grace Dillenger’s ex-husband Raymond takes their daughter Hadley on a long-promised trip and both vanish en route to a mountain lodge, Grace calls in private investigator Clifford Dee, a man tied to her past through an earlier criminal entanglement. What follows is part family crisis, part snowbound investigation, part conspiracy story, with Clifford tracing wreckage, half-truths, burner phones, compromised allies, and a threat that proves larger and stranger than the original disappearance.
Grace isn’t written as a decorative victim; she’s wealthy, sharp, culpable, frightened, and often difficult in ways that feel earned rather than schematic. Clifford, meanwhile, has the reassuring ballast of an old-school thriller lead, but he’s not a granite slab. He notices people, reads rooms, leans on his team, and carries his own fatigue. I especially liked how the novel keeps widening its aperture: what starts as a desperate maternal summons becomes a procedural hunt with digital sleuthing, fieldwork, improvised alliances, and an undercurrent of old violence that never quite stays buried. The ensemble gives the book a welcome elasticity; Bailey in particular adds both warmth and voltage.
The book likes gadgets, backstory, operational detail, hidden networks, Latin tags, near-cinematic reveals, and that plot expansion makes the book feel propulsive. I found myself carried along more often than not. Reed has a sincere feel for place and comfort objects, coffee, snow, warm cars, lodges, weapons, maps, phones, files, and those tactile details give the suspense a lived-in grain. The prose is generally direct, but it occasionally swerves into melodrama or over-explanation; even so, I preferred that earnestness to the bloodless polish of many contemporary thrillers. Redivivus has a pulpy heartbeat that I thoroughly enjoyed.
I’d hand this to readers of mystery, suspense, crime fiction, conspiracy thriller, and investigative adventure who like capable teams, personal stakes, and a story willing to sprawl beyond its initial premise. It feels closer in spirit to Brad Thor or early David Baldacci than to the cooler, more austere end of crime fiction, though some readers may also catch the found-family teamwork and momentum that make Harlan Coben so readable. This is a missing-girl thriller with a conspiratorial afterburn that’s hard to set down.
Pages: 295 | ASIN : B0FXY6RH92
