The Pinochet Plot

The Pinochet Plot, David Myles Robinson, Terra Nova Books, 2018

Will Munoz is a successful attorney in San Francisco. He is also the son of Ricardo Munoz, a well-known Chilean writer, who died when Will was a child. His mother's suicide note asserts that his father was murdered on the orders of Augusto Pinochet, who ruled Chile for more than 15 years in the late 20th century.

Will learns that his father wrote a novel, as yet unpublished, that would have been very unfriendly to Pinochet. A million-dollar reward was established, by Pinochet, for the return of the original manuscript and all published copies. As Will starts to ask questions about his father's death, focus turns to the CIA's famous, or infamous, MKULTRA mind control program. Chuck Evans was a part of MKULTRA, along with Milton Fisher, his CIA handler. After the program was "officially" cancelled, could Milton have kept Chuck supplied with drugs, and turned him into some sort of assassin-for-hire? As an extra complication, Chuck is also Will's step father. Could he have killed Will's father, and married his mother, to find the novel and get that million dollar reward?

This is a very "quiet" novel, in that there are no car chases or hair-raising escapes from the bad guys, But it is a very well-done novel. It explores a pair of unpleasant bits of recent American history, and it is very much worth reading.