“Language, Lilac!”: Dead No More (Rhubarb Papers Book 1) by Pete Adams
(Gumshoe – A Next Chapter Imprint, 2021). ISBN: 9781034490845 “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” —Thomas Jefferson With this opening epitaph, Pete Adams had me hooked. As the US Federal Reserve (neither Federal nor a Reserve) buys up all it can at a bargain under the banners of Qualitative and Quantitative Easing amid whispers of a trillion-dollar platinum coin Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen could use to avoid a government shutdown, even some old-money families like the Rockefellers in West Virginia are chiming in to say “The Fix Is Fully In.” Dead No More opens with a car fire that kills two police officers—a mother (Dawn) and daughter (Carol)—and facially scars their granddaughter/daughter, Juliet. Carol’s husband, who is “something in the City,” which is code for a man of importance, is also killed. It’s clear that the two officers were murdered because they were working on a case involving high-level families...