Glen Erik Hamilton

Past Crimes (2015) (Van Shaw #1) by Glen Erik Hamilton. Van Shaw, Army Ranger, gets 10 days leave to go home to Seattle. During his time in the military Van and his only relative, his grandfather Dono, have not communicated. But a one line message from Dono asking Van to come home sets the Ranger quickly on his way.
But not fast enough. Van gets back to the house he lived in with his grandfather for the better part of eight years only to find the old man shot and barely hanging on. The cops are very interested in Dono, and the reasons for Van return home. Dono had a past, mostly unprosecuted but bright on the police radar.
Van sets off to track the shooter, his every move followed closely by the police. Van knows all about his grandfather’s past, even learning the tradecraft involved. It is one of the things that takes him a good Ranger and is a set of skills he employs frequently in the hunt. Dono’s friends are there to help Van, but he mostly has to go solo.
As this is the first in a proposed series, there are a lot of characters to be introduced and plenty of backstory to go through. The latter is handled cleverly by inserting episodes of on-the-job teaching moments during the years the pair were together.
We don’t get a lot of the physical action side of the Ranger, but we see the deployment of his smarts, both military and criminal (as if there were a great difference) that makes great soldiers out of good ones.
The pacing revs up throughout the book, several bodies and killings occur, the reasons behind everything slowly come to light, and a new heroic character comes into being. He isn’t a “white hat” good guy, he knows his way around the shadier streets of Seattle, but he takes an assault on family and friends very personally. This was a very good read indeed.… (mere)