If you are reading this book, you must certainly know that it’s about the exploits of one Legionnaire named James McGill. He’s legendary as he’s known by quite a number of galactic alien species and is definitely a mystery to both these aliens and the humans who work with him daily.
This books starts off pretty easily in that McGill and Legion Varus isn’t activated yet so he’s kind of on his own time. That’s when one of his Legion buddies, Carlos, makes an appearance at James’ sack in rural Georgia. Now that’s kind of unusual in that James normally only had the female type legionnaires coming to his shack, but this time it was Carlos and he wasn’t a legionnaire any longer. For his own reasons, he had gotten out of the Legion and now was a normal (well, abnormal) Earth civilian trying to make a living. Then he got tangled up with the Clavers! It seems that the Clavers had found a stash of Galactic coins that were worth an ungodly fortune except it was forbidden for humans to even touch these things.
Now when I say forbidden, I meant that in a Galactic way, which means that if a human or humans were ever caught with these Galactic coins, it could result in the extermination of every human on Earth. Now the coins that these Clavers had managed to get hold of belonged to a Galactic alien species called the Tau. These near humans like money. It was everything to them and they protected what they had and anyone stealing from them didn’t live long to talk about it. So, Carlos was in deep, deep trouble. In fact, he was going to prison if he didn’t tell the authorities where he got the coins in his possession and who gave them to him. Carlos was going to be in prison for a long time.
This is when James McGill steps in and starts some investigating. He did that because he was ordered to by none other than Imperator Galina Turov. Yeah, she’s moved up in the world and was no longer commanding Legion Varus. Still, she was acting strange in the beginning of this book because she does actually show up at James’ shack in Georgia, but she also invites him to go with her home and meet her parents! That shocks the crap out of McGill. It seems like Galina’s sister is getting married and Galina needs to be at the wedding according to her father. Now McGill has never met any of Galina’s relatives and especially not her father. And it turns out that her Father is none other than Archduke Turov or Public Servant Turov, about the most highly ranked civilian on the planet Earth.
So, James is meeting new people and so far hasn’t killed any of them yet. That’s where the fun starts. See, the Nairbs are the Galaxies accountants and they know that some Galactic coins have gone missing because the Tau have filed a complaint. James and everyone else knows that if the Naribs find these coins in the possession of Carlos or the Clavers, then Earth is doomed. So, James has to find out where the Clavers are hiding. This is when the fighting all starts. Legion Varus is dispatched to destroy the ice world upon which a large contingent of Claver clones have settled and are guarding a huge stash of Galactic coins. So the legion must get the coins and return them to the Tau or someone in the Galactic government. Of course that’s not going to be easy, and it gets even more complicated when one Centurion James McGill is brought before a court martial which will find him guilty of killing his Legion Varus Commanding Officer and therefore thrown out o f the Legion all together! That can’t happen, right? Well, you’ll have to read to find out.
This another one of those humorous Undying Mercenary books that fits the same pattern as all the rest. McGill has to weasel himself out of one jam or another without getting permed! He barely makes it this time. I was hoping to see McGill get promoted, but I don’t think that’s going to happen and with Graves still around, it probably won’t for quite some time. I still hope there are more books in this series, but 16 is already a lot. I’ll still keep reading them if Mr. Larson keeps writing them.