Book Review: Beer and Gasoline

Beer and Gasoline. John Knoerle. Chicago: Blue Steel Press, August 1, 2017, Trade Paperback and E-book, 298 pages.

Reviewed by Wayne Turmel.

“The Mojave Desert runs on beer and gasoline,” says one of the characters in Beer and Gasoline. It is that kind of insight into both the location (the desert around Needles, CA) and the times (1968, in all its cold-war paranoia and before the incursion of civilization into the last wild places) that serve as the engine for John Knoerle’s enjoyable spy thriller.

The protagonist, CIA agent Hal Schroeder, has appeared in three other novels in Knoerle’s “American Spy Trilogy.” This book appears to be the final, most cynical, entry in the series. 

Sent on a mission to uncover a murder near a top-secret installation deep in the desert, Schroeder discovers secrets hidden in the desert that make him question his loyalty to the Agency as well as its paranoid but brilliant leader, James Jesus Angleton. He becomes the key to a story involving double-crossing spies, Korean War deserters, Native American journalists and a young—but already far too cynical—local cop.

Fans of Cold War espionage stories will enjoy Knoerle’s well-thought-out and researched capture of time and place. I found the story easy to jump into, even though I had not read the previous titles in the series, although that might have helped with Schroeder’s backstory. The characters are unique and perfect for the time period. They are familiar without being the same old tropes.

Readers should know going in that Beer and Gasoline is not told in a traditional narrative. Rather, the story is told in flashbacks through documentary evidence: transcripts, newspaper articles, personal letters, and the handwritten notes of an aging, world-weary, and increasingly cynical spy. The presentation is unique, although some might find it distracting. When it works—as in the transcription of a surveillance audio—it’s fast paced, engaging, and moves the story along at breakneck speed. Some of the personal notes and letters required a suspension of disbelief that took me out of the story for a moment, and the author's use of “Dear Reader” seemed a bit out of place. However, these flaws did not diminish my enjoyment of the book.

As a fan of spy fiction, history, and the Mojave Desert and its residents, I enjoyed the ride.