The Disposible Man A Joe Gunther Novel [Paperback]

When a local quarry yields up a garroted body with bad dental work and toes tattooed in Cyrillic, Joe Gunther figures it for a Russian mafia killing, rare as that might be in Vermont. But it's so very& tidy. So very& professional. Then the CIA calls, inviting Gunther down to Washington for some friendly assistance with his case. Suddenly hes caught up a shadowy game of cross and double-crossmanipulated by cynical cold warriors who seem not to have gotten the memoand Gunther soon realizes that he's a pawn that both sides are willing to sacrifice.

To set the stage: Having found a mysterious dead man in Vermont-who has no identification and Russian letters tattooed on his toes-Joe is suddenly called to Washington, D. C. for a meeting with a CIA officer.

I dont often travel beyond the three states surrounding Vermont, but when I do, Im amazed at the my small worlds insularity. There are just over half a million Vermonters-not quite as many, it seemed, as were crowding the Boston-New York-DC corridor the day I drove south. Like the sole contemplative member of some gigantic herd, I began to wonder if I was even remotely in control of my choice of destinations, or merely being influenced by some massive migratory urge. Trucks, cars, pickups, and upscale four-by-fours by the thousands, along with their apparently transfixed drivers, seemed as drawn by the same irresistible magnetism that was pulling me along. And that was just the most immediate contrast. Beyond the traffic was the scenery, slowly changing from farmland to mall to suburb to something that eventually looked like a city without end, punctuated now and then by a sudden upthrust of taller buildings, appearing like some cataclysmic collision between tectonic plates. Which may be, in fact, what makes the approach to downtown Washington as unique as it is, at least from the north. Where Hartford, Springfield, New York, Baltimore, and all the rest have recognizable city centers projecting a sense olsÉ