Category Archives: Thrillers

Review: Firepower (John Cutter)

We know the story: ex-Special Ops guy trying to fulfill his dying pal’s wish runs into trouble and uses his brains and his brawn to do it.

Vince Bellator is the ex-SpecOps person in question, and while hiking in the woods and minding his own business, he encounters three white supremacists who should have stayed in bed that day instead of challenging him. When I realized Bellator would be punching nazis and white supremacists, I automatically gave it another star. as I am a huge fan of that.

Bellator realizes that there’s lot more going on here that your usual idiots playing nazi in the woods, so decides to infiltrate the group. He does this, and begins gathering intel, determined that this particular group of nazis will be taken down. His problem, once in, is how to get the information out.New members are scrutinized very carefully, and no one is allowed to keep weapons on their person except those charged with security.

Along the way, Bellator finds an unlikely companion within the compound who is more than she seems. They realize that these nazis are arranging a large-scale, coordinated attack on some government officials – and now they have to stop it.

I won’t go further than that for spoilery reasons, except to say that I bet Bellator wished he were Spider-Man crawling up the face of a cliff at a point late in the book.

There’s quite a bit of suspended disbelief required, but I think that there’s at least a little in every book, no matter the genre. Fans of this kind of book will enjoy it, no doubt.

Four out of five stars from me.

Thanks to Lume Books and NetGalley for the reading copy.

The Executive Order (David Fisher)

If you’re a trumpette or a far right conservative,you’ll hate this book and give up when the failures of trump’s administration are sorted out in the chapters following the initial terrorist attacks that open the book. You probably should not bother.

If that sort of factual relation doesn’t mess with your worldview, this is a middling superguy/journalist story that’s a fair read.

The book opens with attacks on the Lincoln Tunnel in NY, a dam in Louisiana, and the explosion of the USS Arizona in Hawaii. Deaths? Too many to count. The response of the 2024 President Ian Wrightman: in a nod to fighting terrorism, a rollback of some civil liberties. The slow erosion of rights continues to creep into the country until finally it’s simply a fascist government, with the Constitution basically suspended and neighbors encouraged to spy and report on one another, a la 1984.

Rollie Stone, paraplegic former SpecOps and now journalist, is following all this, wondering what is happening to his country. He writes stories about the attacks and then about the targeting of a house in Detroit that is blasted to pieces and everyone inside killed. As it turns out, the people inside that house were innocent, and the government has just murdered a bunch of people on US soil.

The book proceeds to follow Rollie as he watches the tightening of the country, to the point where the electronic newspaper he works for is shut down, as all media now belongs to the government and reports only good news. Rollie then becomes a rebel, fighting to bring information about a cyber hijacking of an airliner to someone who will listen. The remainder of the book is about that quest and the dangers of a fascist state.

But for complete incompetence and greed, we could have been in the process of becoming that fascist country under the former guy’s term. The term creeping fascism exists for a reason, and anyone who has studied WWII, or Germany’s descent into fascism will recognize the steps outlined in this book. This may hit close to home for some people, so be advised that there is also a televised hanging of “traitors” described in this book.

As I read, I wondered if the author was putting in easter eggs on purpose, or just coincidentally. The current President is Ian Wrightman – I, Wrightman – I, right man, as in the right man for the job. I also wondered if the author is a Dick Francis fan, since Rollie calls the two Feds sent to round him up as Dick and Francis. There are other things along these same lines.

I wasn’t bothered by a lot in this book, but one of the things that did bother me was Rollie not discovering who was actually behind this lockdown of the country earlier. It bugged me that we got a “It was so and so all along!” in the end, when it’s clear as day earlier in the book who it is.

If you can handle the mix of fact and fiction, it’s a good enough read.

Overall, three out of five stars.

Thanks to St Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the reading copy.

Review: The Export – The Export #1 (JK Kelley)

I’m not above popcorn style spy/thriller novels. I understand that sometimes, you just need a James Bond-type to fly around the world, being invincible and solving puzzles that apparently no one else is capable of solving. At least, that’s how Matt Christopher, ex-FBI agent and current international man of mystery (no offense, Austin Powers) strikes me.

 

When the book opens, we’re at a base camp at Mt Everest, in a tent where a man and woman have just finished having sex. MattĀ  makes his entrance, suffering from altitude sickness and jet lag. The man from the first chapter has an ice axe embedded in his skull and Matt sort of barges into the investigation, directing local law enforcement to do this or that. Then, he bids them farewell, and he’s jetting off (first class, of course) to London.

OK, fine. We’re to believe that Matt is now an independent contractor for the US government, because he can tell when people are lying or read a crime scene or a witness or anything else (he’s described at one point as a tracker, which was a little confusing and weird). So he flies around the world, setting up meets and reviewing evidence and interviewing people – you know, the things that local law enforcement could probably do without him.

In London, he meets up with a friend who works for British intelligence, and they’re hunting for a guy who slashes womens’ throats – and all the victims have been members of Parliament. Naturally, Matt swoops in and figures out whodunnit. Then: he’s off again.

We get more descriptions of how he’s flying from one place to another. There was a lot of that in this book. I have to say that I don’t care at all how characters get from point A to point B unless there’s something significant about it. Is thee a bomb on the plane? Is the bus going to be hijacked? Does the car have a tracking device on it?

Stick Matt on a plane, send him somewhere, point him to a case. He figures out the bad guy, jets off. Repeat this for what seems to be a dozen times in this book. The bad guys are the type who are immediately identifiable to the reader and who like to confess. Except the beautiful, sexy Russian spy who kills someone close to Matt. She’s all over the place, a superspy, just like him, skating just out of reach.

 

Until the end – the final scene in the book, which I’m going to spoil for you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Russian is found in a Thai tourist resort – just like Matt forecast with his spidey sense. She’s meeting Matt’s best friend (there’s stuff earlier in the book where this guy is at the house where the woman Matt is close to is murdered; they are lifetime pals), and that friend meets her on the beach in the dunes to set her up for Matt, who comes up behind her and shoots her in the head. The two of them drag her into the dunes, and then? They’re off to the bar, which is not terribly far away, to have a cold one and toast their friend. That just seems a little psychopathic to me.

There are a number of things that this book needs or needs to eject. It really and desperately needs an editor. There’s no need to pile all of these escapades into the same book instead of just picking one or even three and fleshing those out. The good guy doesn’t have to take down all the bad guys in a single book.

All the unnecessary travel stuff can also go. Most of them don’t matter to the story and do nothing but serve as filler.

Within the first five pages, Matt says he had spent some time in a “hyperbolic chamber” to charge up his red blood cells because apparently flying to Kathmandu from Qatar to sale Everest was a spur of the moment thing. While this book may be a “hyperbolic chamber”, it is a hyperbaric chamber that is used for the medical purpose Matt describes.

When in London, Matt decides to help his pal Charlie (of British intelligence) and it is described thusly: “It took a split second for Matt to agree to help, and Charlie knew that meant it would be in any way he could. That was his friend’s Motus Operandi, his “M.O.””

Two things: people know what an MO is, and they don’t need the Latin. Also, if you are going to use the Latin, it is “modus operandi” and it doesn’t need to be capitalized.

I wasn’t looking terribly closely at things after the first dozen chapters. I skimmed through much of the rest, seeing the pattern (Matt flies somewhere -> crime -> superdude solves it -> goodbye -> repeat), and skipping forward. At no point – even when Matt’s been hit in the head and hauled off – is there ever a question that he will get out of the situation, and no indication that he’s even perturbed or worried about it. There’s no real tension here.

If you need something fast, don’t mind what could be described as serials pushed together into a single book, and want an indestructible good guy (who does bad things, like kill people), take it for a ride.

Two out of five stars.

Thanks to JK Kelly and NetGalley for the review copy

Review: Mastermind, Blackwood/Cray #1 (Andrew Mayne)

I seem to recall reading something that had Theo Cray in it, but clearly, I’m thinking of someone else, as the series featuring Cray is not something I’ve read. Likewise, I have not read any books in the Jessica Blackwood series.

That said, this books, labeled as Blackwood/Cray #1 seems to be a new series where thy will be together to investigate oddball things that may happen – like a mysterious blackout in NYC that appears to be swirling with electric energy and which also cut out power to almost everyone in the bubble and caused electronic devices to stop working.

We get a scene of Cray being liberated from a jail in a foreign land, and it appears Jessica Blackwood possesses skills ranging from hand o hand combat to forging paperwork. It’s the latter that allows her to get Cray out of the hellhole he’s in.

Of course, there’s a catch to all this: the FBI, for whom Blackwood works, needs him and Blackwood to look into the phenomenon they’ve taken to calling The Void. Blackwood believes it’s the work of that typical fictional villain, Michael Heywood, AKA Warlock who seems to have the world at his fingertips and who managed to escape prison during a transfer.

What follows is a romp around the globe, with clues coming from the oddest places: a zoo where chimpanzees have been stolen. A “research facility” in the Chernobyl zone, where the men are practically zombies, but ordinarily healthy otherwise, no matter what ailment(s) they may have had before..

Together, the no nonsense, hyperfocused Blackwood, and the talks before he thinks Theo Cray race around the globe, looking into odd incidents, thefts from datacenters, and two more Voids in Seoul and Singapore. In their way: people paid off by Heywood, and eventually a face to face with Heywood, who demands Cray also be there, despite Cray not having any direct connection to Heywood, so Heywood can detail the ways the he is better than Cray..

As far as stories go, it isn’t too bad. There’s enough suspense that then turns into a “the clock is ticking” story when the threat of yet another Void is hanging over their heads to keep things moving along. I did like the banter between Blackwood and Cray, and there is the typical internecine fighting between federal agencies, both of which ring true. The ending is a turn the tables type, and that works here in the universe of this book. The writing is good, although some of the backstory drop-ins felt a little forced. That does not really break the narrative, however, and while some of them were rather long – necessary for some of the technical stuff that most people don’t know or with which they are not familiar – but I am not dinging it for this.

A solid four stars.

Thanks to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for the review copy.

Review: Levi’s War, Horowitz #3 (Julie Thomas)

I’m of two minds about Levi’s War, the closing chapter of the Horowitz trilogy. I wanted to like it much more than I did, and I wanted it to be able to stand on its own, and it doesn’t. I wouldn’t say it’s a crushing disappointment, as it is not, but neither is it a rip-roaring tale of a fictional Jew (the Levi of the title) trained as a spy and assassin (more on this later), who by sheer happenstance lands in Hitler’s inner circle during WWII.

I get that historical fiction, and especially historical spy/thriller tales, need a lot of suspension of disbelief and a big helping of coincidence, but this really strained my willingness to remain in the book. But, as my power cut off during a storm, and remained off for over two hours, and having already read the other books on my Netgalley shelf, I didn’t have much else to do.

As might be clear from the above, it’s an easy enough, although rather pedestrian, read, and I did complete it during the outage. It is the third book in a trilogy, and this time, I’d say that reading the first two would have been a huge help to keep track of who everyone was, and who was related to whom. Completely denoting it as a third book in that way would have saved Ms Thomas the need to insert explanatory passages from the first two books, and would have saved us having to read them – multiple times throughout. While I know some people minded how the story was told – a young, 1945 Levi tells his story to a camera, the film is found during archival digitizing, and the immediate, extended, and descendant family watching that film – but this was fine with me. I didn’t care for just how dry – almost clinically dry – it was.

If you’re coming to this book and its weighty subject expecting to find a deeply emotional, resonant work set during one of the most shameful eras of human existence, you won’t find it here. There isn’t anyone in this book who seemed to be passionate about anything at all, except for Levi when playing the piano. His relationship with a childhood friend and a young Luftwaffe officer was mundane, and it wasn’t love that occupied Levi’s thoughts, but textbook dry, junior high muddling. Since homosexuality was criminalized, I’d have expected much more about how Levi and Erik evaded detection, since it’s clear Levi spends many nights – consecutive nights – at Erik’s place, something that surely would have generated gossip.

Beyond that, the book is a rather straightforward account of what Levi did during the war. He leaves Berlin, bound for London via Sweden, but gets held up by a Nazi at a checkpoint. Now, Levi at this point if just Levi, the musician. In this scene, he may as well be James Bond: the Nazi’s Ruger jams not once, but twice when he tries to shoot Levi. Levi needs only to step into the Nazi as the latter is about to pistol whip him and throw what amounts to one punch, which slams the man against a wall an knocks him out. Then Levi picks up the gun and flees with his belongings into the woods, magically making it to London despite having no military or survival training.

All the right doors open for Levi when they need to, and all the right people appear for him when the plot needs it. He works as a banker until total war breaks out, at which point he is placed in a camp with other refugees. He’s eventually tapped by the British to be a spy – and not just any spy: a spy whose purpose is to get into the circle of high level Nazis in order to send information back to the Allies. The British train him in less than a year, and he’s off to Berlin, to work in Goebbels’ office, translating English newspaper articles. He’s tapped to play piano at a party, eventually making it up the Nazi food chain until hes sent to play or Hitler himself. In doing so, he manages to send back quite a it of material, because the Nazis apparently don’t keep their mouths shut about organizational issues and/or chitchat when junior officers are present.

Levi eventually leaves Germany with Erik, who has recently been snuck out of Dachau worse for wear. They decide that Italy is where they should go, to fight with the partisans there, and that’s just what they do, traveling at night and hiding out during the day – something Levi does again later, on his own, and in neither instance is there any threat to being discovered. There’s no tension on those pages or many others in this book.

The Allies win, Levi is debriefed, and off he goes to live his life, with his relatives only finding out the story all those years later, watching the film. The ending sputters out a little, with a genealogy search that says flat out the circle of the Horowitz tale is over, instead of using a more metaphorical image to end on.

It’s decent enough if you’re casting around for something to read and have a few hours to do so. But if you haven’t read the first two books, just a warning that you’ll see the same information presented over and over because you weren’t there for the first two.

Two and half stars, rounded to three, and that only because the story, in its own framework, held itself together to the end.

Thanks to Harper360 and NetGalley for the review copy.

Hunting the Hangman (Howard Linskey)

An engrossing, novelized version of the plot to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, one of the architects of the so-called “final solution” envisioned by Nazi Germany, by Czech partisans trained by the British.

Knowing their survival after the assassination attempt – regardless of whether said assassination attempt was successful or not – was unlikely, the two Czechs go forward with their training and the attempt in any case, as the sacrifice of their lives may save many, many others.

The training sequences are the weakest, but only because the other events in the book – including glimpses of the Hangman’s family life – are much more fascinating. This is not a detraction from the book, however, which is a great fictional rendition of factual events read for anyone interested in WWII, the Holocaust, or Nazi Germany.

Solid five out of five read.

Thanks to Kensington Books and NetGalley for the review copy.

Review: Heartbreak Bay – Stillhouse Lake #5 (Rachel Caine)

This is the fifth (and now final, with the author’s death) book in the Stillhouse Lake series. The first book in the series – also called Stillhouse Lake – had me scratching my head, wondering if I’d read it or any other in this series, as it sounded familiar. As is fairly usual in my case, the answer is no.

Fortunately, it isn’t necessary to have read the genesis of the series in order to understand this one. Even if Ms Caine had not given some quick backstory disguised as the main character’s musings while looking at the photos on the walls in her office, it would have worked just as well as a standalone thriller/mystery. I do think, however, if this books sounds interesting that reading the books in order would be beneficial, for all the little things readers might notice in each book along the way that the author may (judiciously) not mention in the later books, and to witness the growth of the characters as they move through the events of each book.

Warning, content-wise: if you’re easily put off by violence, or descriptions of violence in general, and specifically violence toward children, this is not the book for you. On the other hand, if you’re fine with violence and you like strong female characters, you might want to give it a go.

Heartbreak Bay is a multi-point of view, present tense book., and Gwen, the primary character, is now a private investigator. When Detective Kezia Claremont calls her to come to the scene of a submerged car, she can’t help but go. When the car is extracted, there are two kids, strapped in and drowned, but no sign of the mother, who was driving. This investigation by itself would be enough for a book (or more), and although I picked out the villain when they showed up in the book, this did not detract from an engaging case that tried everyone involved – as it generally is when it involves kids.

There’s a subplot involving an internet rando troll, trying to make Gwen pay for what the troll thinks she did – namely, helping her ex-husband in his serial killing ways. This subplot is ok as a device, but there’s enough stress and pressure in the primary case without it. I didn’t find this as engaging as the primary case, and that may just have to do with things external to the book (like living through the past five years, as I type this, and the sheer tsunami of nonsense online) than it does with he book itself. It does fit pretty well into the larger scope of the book, so I won’t ding it in rating it.

Overall, I found Heartbreak Bay lived up to both the thriller and mystery genres, with fairly tight plotting, good writing, and characters worth writing about.

A solid 4.5 stars out of 5, rounded to a 5 for its good qualities and no major issues.

Thanks to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for the review copy.

Review: Ring of Spies – Richard Prince #3 (Alex Gerlis)

Richard Prince is back in this third installment of his eponymous series. While it is not necessary to have read the first two books, it certainly does help.

The book opens with an English officer describing the debacle at Arnhem (Operation Market Garden, for those into the European theater of operations during WWII). He’s insistent that the Germans knew the plans for the operation.

One of the issues with series characters is giving the reader some backstory so they know enough to agree to go along on the ride the main character is about to take, but aren’t overwhelmed to the point that they miss that bus. Generally, it’s a good idea to drizzle in the backstory like you’re making your own aioli: slowly. Doing infodumps isn’t a good way to go, just as dumping all the oil in at once into your aioli isn’t: in the case of the latter, it causes the mix to break, and in the case of he former, it breaks the reading experience. Unfortunately, Ring of Spies starts with a lot of infodumping. There are also numerous “As you know, Bob” moments where one character is telling another character something they already know as a way to get that information to the reader.

Once past all this, the story picks up, and we find out the Germans have placed numerous agents in England. Prince is back in Lincolnshire, having recovered his lost son (book two) and basically policing an area that has no huge issues with crime, and almost zero serious crimes. He’s approached again, just as he was in the first book, to join the intelligence service to help root our the German moles.

While he resists at first, he also acknowledges that he is a bit restless, having grown accustomed to the action of being a spy, where any misstep could be the last one. He agrees, and we’re off into skullduggery within England itself.

There are scenes from the German side of the war, as there have been previously in this series, and we get infodumps on this side as well, but the positioning of the agents in England, how they are insulated from one another (to make them more difficult to detect, and to make it more difficult for them to give up the entire ring), and how they communicate with the Germans was quite interesting.

The ebb and flow of the war – even though we know that in the year of book, 1944, victory in Europe is coming sooner rather than later – and the danger war brings are still very real for the participants. The book continues at a good pace through the machinations of ally and foe alike. The ending, though, feels a bit rushed, even with the buildup of action as the Allies move ever forward to victory.

Even with that, however, it’s a worthy entry to the series. I didn’t find it as good as the first book in the series, but I did like it more than the second. It’s well worth a read for thriller fans and history buffs alike.

A solid four out of five stars.

Thanks to Canelo and NetGalley for the review copy.

Review: 13 Days to Die (Matt Miksa)

Sometimes, I don’t mind if a book doesn’t quite know what it wants to be when it grows up.

This is not one of those times.

13 Days to Die spreads itself across several genres – thriller (political, medical), mystery (hunting an ID to attach to a person), flat out political commentary, conspiracy theories, etc.

The basics: a man comes out of the forest in Tibet, looking like Patient Zero of a new bug that could easily become a pandemic, which will look pretty familiar to anyone living through 2020. An American intel officer impersonating a journalist, Olen Grave, is sent off to investigate this, and teams up with a Chinese medical doctor, Dr. Zhou, also investigating it.

It doesn’t spoil anything to say that Patient Zero is not just some random dude, but is more than he seems to be. Grave (it isn’t necessary to telegraph what’s going on by naming someone Grave, author, unless you want to add pulpy fiction to the list of genres) and Zhou get caught up in a (shocker!) conspiracy involving their respective countries. They have to figure out what is going on before the planet gets nuked into oblivion.

There are some unnecessary afterwords about characters at the end, and it’s at this point where the train really goes off the rails.

The story is okay, but the book could have been better if it decided whether to go into full-on conspiracy theorist ground.

Two out of five stars.

Thanks to Crooked Lane and NetGalley for the review copy.

Review: The Vatican Conspiracy – Marco Venetti #1 (Peter Hogenkamp)

A fine debut in a new series!

Marco Venetti – scratch that, Father Marco Venetti – is a former sailor in the Italian Navy. Not just a sailor, though: he has the skillset of a special forces member. This skillset isn’t often necessary in his current job, but when his ex shows up, carrying stories of human trafficking, it’s a good thing he has them.

Venetti is a good character – he’s not happy about taking lives, and he’s a bit on the fence about his vows and weighing those against helping Elena. It’s nice to have a main character whose flaws and hangups do not involve them being stalked by serial killers and the like. Venetti’s introspection revolves around him taking proactive steps in life (before this book begins and within it) versus having the forces of life act upon him.

The action begins on the first page and doesn’t let up. As with most conspiracies, there’s more than just the surface level in play.

If you like Dan Brown or Gregg Hurwitz – an odd pairing, I know, but trust me on this – you’ll enjoy this one.

A solid four out of five stars.

Thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for the review copy.