Death Floor, by Martin Limón,

 

"Death Floor," by Martin Limón, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, March/April 2022.

This is the sixth appearance in this space by Martin LimKimchi Kitty, by Martin Limonn and I believe it is the fourth showing for George Sueño and Ernie Bascom, investigators for the CID of the American Eighth Army.  They work in South Korea, eternally in the mid-seventies.  (They have starred in a dozen novels.)

In this story senior clerk Riley, their old frenemy, has been put in a hospital by a beating.  The colonel in charge of CID had sent him on an off-the-books operation, and it had gone badly.  

It seems an officer had a gambling problem and the bad guys he owed money too swiped the half-American little boy he wanted to adopt, as collateral.  Hence the colonel's desire to keep the case hush-hush.

So Sueño and  Bascom have to find and rescue the little boy and punish the people who beat up Riley, and do it all if possible without making a stink.   Good luck, soldiers.

I wrote two weeks ago that Rafe McGregor convinced me he knew all about nineteenth century British army life.  In the same way Limón is absolutely sure-footed in describing Korea in the 1970s and the tricky lives of the CID agents.  Always a fascinating journey with them.