Chicago Courier (The Courier Book 2)

A Historic Relic. A Deadly Pursuit. A Family Worth Protecting.

Caz Nowak has returned to Chicago with his wife, Meaw, and their adopted daughter, Tangmo, hoping to leave the violence of Bangkok behind. But when a fragment of the legendary True Cross surfaces in Las Vegas, their peaceful new life is threatened by international crime syndicates, intelligence agencies, and powerful figures determined to control it.

The search leads from the casinos of Las Vegas to the streets of Chicago and South Bend, where old loyalties are tested and new allies emerge. As Tangmo uncovers clues buried in centuries of history, Caz must protect both the relic and the family he fought so hard to build.

Chicago Courier, the second book in Dan Blacharski’s Courier series, is a fast-paced crime thriller about faith, loyalty, family, and the cost of safeguarding the future.

Follow Caz into a dangerous race for a treasure that could change history.

Excerpt from the book

“I’m counting on you for a successful delivery of the package,” said Jean-Claude. They sat around the plain wooden table in Chef’s establishment in the heart of Bangkok’s Chinatown, a secretive restaurant the tourists didn’t know about that served as a front for shady transactions, a safe haven for crime summits involving some of the world’s most notorious smugglers, thieves, and traffickers of everything from rare Chinese aphrodisiacs to heavy artillery, and the go-to destination for anything that had to be kept secret. “We’re going a little farther this time. The destination is Chicago. I have contacts there and new business that needs to be developed. I need a network in America.”

The air conditioning was out of service, and the repairman was late. Jean-Claude, always immaculately dressed in his black Armani suit and crisp white shirt with French cuffs, wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and draped his jacket across the back of the chair. It was an unusual show of informality for Jean-Claude.

That package—a drive containing valuable information about Jean-Claude’s global shipping network, names and addresses of underworld contacts, and a log of payoffs to crooked cops, judges, and politicians from Bangkok to Kyiv—had already caused bloodshed and a war that resulted in the death of Jean-Claude’s longtime rival, Severyn.

Caz, an American expat from the heart of the Midwest, held the package safely in his Prada messenger bag. He had already killed for it when Severyn planned a surprise ambush on Caz’s wedding day just a few weeks ago. He had come a long way since leaving everything behind in South Bend, an Indiana Rust Belt city known mostly for Notre Dame football and for having once manufactured Studebaker automobiles. Leaving behind a failed marriage, false accusations that had somehow taken root and resulted in an ongoing criminal investigation, and his small-time, one-man public relations company, he was now Chef’s trusted gatekeeper, privy to the most closely held secrets in Bangkok’s notorious underworld. Bangkok was his refuge. His escape. His new world.

Chef—whose real name remained a mystery—poured the wine. A special bottle from his cellar, a twenty-year-old Lafite, it was, like everything that came out of Chef’s kitchen, exquisite. Caz took a sip and grasped the hand of his new bride, Meaw, a pretty young woman he had met shortly after his otherwise undistinguished arrival in Bangkok. Meaw, naturally intelligent, able to adapt like a chameleon to any environment, and fluent in three languages, had proven herself to be a worthy courier for Khun Noi’s secretive courier network. Noi lifted her glass toward Jean-Claude and savored the wine. She had built out her network over the past many years, and her team was responsible for the safe, secure, and secret delivery of packages all around Southeast Asia. Her network, led by the eponymous and always graceful Yi Ling, originally from Hong Kong and the daughter of a corrupt Chinese diplomat, was no ordinary delivery service. Couriers, each of whom was given a copy of The Art of War upon being hired and asked to memorize it, had to be refined, polished, and skilled in the art of deception—not to mention handy with firearms.