Thank you, Mr. Hewitt, for reaching out to me with a copy of Pernicious Proclivities. I am giving this review voluntarily. Pernicious Proclivities takes place a bit more recently than my other recent historical reads, but it didn’t stop me from enjoying the novel. It took me a little bit to adjust to the voice and tone, but I soon wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery. My Pittsburgh connections also made this a fun book for me to read! I give this novel four out of five stars.
Rocco Mancuso, a federal agent for the Atomic Energy Commission in the 1960s, is on the hunt. He’s tracking a spy from the wilds of Tennesee to Pennsylvania and back again. It’s hard to say who the spy might be – or where 300 kilos of highly enriched uranium might have gone – but Mancuso is determined to find out. While he’s on the road, he’s able to avoid his boss, his tumultuous personal life, and pretend that his career has a future.
Because of the direction his investigation is taking him, Mancuso ends up crossing paths with Ty Rettig, a powerful senator’s son, who is shaping up to be a pretty nasty character. Backed by the power his father wields, the Rettigs are powerful players who are out for themselves. Between nuclear accidents, missing scientists, and a whole lack of paperwork, Mancuso realizes that he’ll be lucky to end this case with his head intact, let alone his career.
Although, as I said, it’s not my usual subject matter, nation, or time period, I really did end up enjoying Pernicious Proclivities. Hewitt writes from the perspectives of many different characters, which makes the book multifaceted. It also takes the audience away from Mancuso’s fairly jaded perspective for periods of time. His is not an unpleasant perspective, really, but he’s pretty cynical. I do feel like his character is written well and his voice is true to his description and circumstances.
While there were chunks of the book that weren’t written in Mancuso’s voice, I’d say he was present for about 75%. The other characters don’t seem super relevant until about halfway through the novel when things really start to connect together. It’s about this time when, after Mancuso’s success in one area, he suddenly finds himself fighting for his career, life, and future when assigned to a case involving Rettig. I found this to be a great point of writing as it illustrated Mancuso as a down-on-his-luck guy and the sheer unpredictability of life.
There wasn’t much background on Rettig during this novel; I believe this is his villain origin story but he entered the picture kind of late. However, this is a prequel to the Dr. Essie Openwaters series (she really faces off with Rettig, to my knowledge), and the reader may be expected to already be familiar with Rettig. Rettig was a little too ultravillain for me in this book; I would have liked to see him have a weak point. But if he really is psychopathic (clinically), he may not have one.
I thought the plot of Pernicious Proclivities was good. There were a few plot twists that really made the book, and following Mancuso (not sure if Essie Openwaters runs into him again or not) was fine. His investigative skills and instincts were excellent, which was probably the only thing that saved him. I was really glad that he got a happy(/ier) ending. Mancuso is a good guy with a solid conscience, which makes him a good hero for this story and the complete antithesis of Rettig.
If you’re looking for a thriller with an agreeable hero and a bomb of a problem (literally), then try Pernicious Proclivities.
More about W. Michael Hewitt can be found here.
More on the missing uranium from the Apollo plant can be found here.