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The Gray Man, Book 9

From the publisher:

From Mark Greaney, the New York Times bestselling author of Mission Critical and a coauthor of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan novels, comes another high-stakes thriller featuring the world’s most dangerous assassin: the Gray Man.

While on a mission to Croatia, Court Gentry uncovers a human trafficking operation. The trail leads from the Balkans all the way back to Hollywood.

Court is determined to shut it down, but his CIA handlers have other plans. The criminal ringleader has actionable intelligence about a potentially devastating terrorist attack on the US. The CIA won’t move until they have that intel. It’s a moral balancing act with Court at the pivot point.

The only book more exciting and filled with action involving Court Gentry, “The Gray Man,” is another book about his exploits. And “One Minute Out” certainly fits the bill.

Gentry is an assassin. He works for the CIA but also does paid work for others and has made himself very wealthy doing so. The story opens as The Gray Man is in Croatia fulfilling a private contract. While in the process, he stumbles upon a worldwide human trafficking network and is forced by circumstances to go after it. It is a huge operation netting billions of dollars to its leaders, but in the process making slaves and ruining the lives of countless women and girls forced into sexual slavery.

While handling the Croatian contract, Court meets a young woman whose sister is among the many girls captured by the Consortium (the name of the network). For many reasons he indicates that he will help her rescue her sister and the action begins. Following the route of the kidnapped girls takes Court from the Balkans to Hollywood in the United States. The entire journey is filled with action, with Court and the young girl he is now loosely aligned with following the trail of the ring transporting the women to their ultimate destination where they are to be sold off as sex slaves.

An unforeseen obstacle presents itself when the CIA intervenes, prohibiting Court from killing the head of the kidnapping group as the individual is supplying information to the agency about various criminal activities. Greaney does not hide his feelings about any government agency condoning turning people into slaves under any circumstances. The horrors these women meet when captured is described in graphic detail including their murder when their useful life is overdue to physical impairments.

The author is a master at grabbing his readers, getting them drawn into the action and keeping them glued to the book until finished. This novel is the ninth involving the Gray Man and is another five star read with the reader anxiously awaiting the next one.

2/2020 Paul Lane

ONE MINUTE OUT by Mark Greaney. Berkley (February 18, 2020). ISBN 978-0593098912. 512p.

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From the publisher:

In the newest thriller from best-selling author Harry Dolan, Sean Tennant stops a deadly mass shooter. And that act of courage may get him killed.

Sean Tennant and Molly Winter are living quietly and cautiously in Houston when a troubled, obsessive stranger shatters the safety they have carefully constructed for themselves. Sean is at a shopping mall when Henry Alan Keen, scorned by a woman he’s been dating, pulls out a gun at the store where she works and begins shooting everyone in sight. A former soldier, Sean rushes toward Keen and ends the slaughter with two well-placed shots―becoming a hero with his face plastered across the news.

But Sean’s newfound notoriety exposes him to the wrath of two men he thought he had left safely in his past. One of them blames Sean for his brother’s death. The other wants to recover a treasure that Sean and Molly stole from him. Both men are deadly and relentless enemies, and Sean and Molly will need to draw on all their strength and devotion to each other if they hope to elude them. Thus begins a cross-country chase that leads from Texas to Montana, from Tennessee to New York to Michigan, as the hunters and their prey grow ever closer and, in a heart-stopping moment, converge.
A wickedly clever and exhilarating thriller, The Good Killer offers a sophisticated, breathtaking look at the extremes people will reach for love, greed, and survival.

Sean Tennant and Molly Winter are a young couple that are currently living in Houston, Texas. We know that they have come there after fleeing from something in their past. They live quietly and don’t mingle with others very well. Suddenly fate takes a hand in their lives. Sean is walking through a mall when shots ring out around the area. A man named Henry Alan Keen who has just been dumped by his girlfriend and has been looking for her has spotted her in the mall. He pulls out a gun and shoots a man standing near her killing him. Keen than grabs his ex-girlfriend’s arm and begins dragging her around while shooting at people.

Sean is an ex-soldier and carries a concealed weapon. He runs towards Keen, calmly pulls out his gun and shoots the killer dead. Anyone witnessing this scene immediately thinks of Sean as a hero for his actions but does not understand his quickly getting out of the area. He also does not stop for any photos of him. The mystery about Sean and Molly deepens as instead of waiting for the police and the praise they would certainly have made plans to immediately leave Houston.

The novel turns to two different men that have been searching for the couple for several years. One blames his brother’s death on Sean and the other is looking for both in order to get back a fortune in rare antiquities they have stolen from him. The story follows the chase after the couple once the two men recognize them from TV. Action and plenty of it runs from Houston to Montana from Tennessee to New York with an aside at a rundown settlement deep in the woods. The pace of the novel keeps the reader glued to the book with every incentive to finish it in one splendid read. And a very good read it is supplying every reason to pick up Harry Dolan’s future books.

2/2020 Paul Lane

THE GOOD KILLER by Harry Dolan. Mysterious Press (February 4, 2020). ISBN: 978-0802148414. 304p.

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Duncan Hunter Thriller, Book 5

From the publisher:

Law enforcement agencies have chosen to ignore rather than investigate dozens of political figures and defectors who have died under mysterious circumstances. When a Democratic National Committee staff member is murdered before the presidential election, Washington, D.C. police is also uninterested in investigating the crime.

The President is well behind in the polls. Some powerful people want assurances that the President will never take the oath of office if he unexpectedly wins.

On Election Day, the Central Intelligence Agency Director uncovers treachery at the highest levels of his organization. A rogue group of senior intelligence officers may have exposed themselves for who they really are before disappearing with a secret experimental weapon. Mounting evidence suggests the President may be in peril but the Secret Service isn’t interested in conspiracy theories or implausible weapons with impossible capabilities.

Will CIA pilot Duncan Hunter save the President from a group of assassins?

Mark Hewitt presents the 5th book in his series headlining Duncan Hunter, a pilot for the CIA. The book opens at a point where Hunter destroys a field of marijuana via the use of computer-aided weapons. And as in previous books, he jumps right into more action.

A plot is discovered by the CIA director in which it appears likely that a rogue group of high-level government officials have stolen and fled with a secret weapon. The weapon is unknown to most people and involves a gun that can be aimed, fired, and effective up to 10 miles from the target. The fleeing rogue officials are feared to want to assassinate the new, recently elected president of the United States and claim a reward for doing so from the Soviet Union.

Hunter goes right into the pursuit of the officials aided by his wife, and also his daughter from a previous marriage who is coincidentally working for the CIA. Their hunt for the rogue group is hampered by the inability of the CIA to understand that a weapon unknown to them would have a feasible killing range of up to 10 miles and not be more than a weapon carried by one person.
The action takes place over a complicated mix of politics, tradecraft, political realities and normal government functions giving the reader a very solid conspiracy theory novel and a couple of all-night reads. The ending finds Hunter and his family on vacation but called upon by his supervisor to drop everything and get back to headquarters to move into another sequence of battle against America’s enemies. No rest for the weary, but good reading material.

2/2020 Paul Lane

WET WORK by Mark A. Hewitt. Black Rose Writing (January 2, 2020). ASIN: B07YR2GLVT. 669p.

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From the publisher:

Gary Stephens is brought into a government-sanctioned cover-up when he discovers that his father helped fake the Apollo 11 moon landing in the 1960s.

After China announce a space mission to place their own flag next to the one US astronauts planted during the Apollo 11 mission, few people bat an eyelid. Shortly after this statement Charlie Stephens, a 81-year-old former filmmaker, is murdered. The incident is made to look like an accident, but why?

Going through his father’s effects, Gary Stephens – a director of beer and yogurt ads – discovers seven cans of old 35mm film. Dated before the landing, they’re identical to the footage NASA claims was shot by the Apollo 11 crew. The US flag is not and has never been in the Sea of Tranquillity, and only Tricky Dick and a handful of others knew it.

Why was the real nature of the Apollo 11 mission kept hidden? And what measures will be taken to keep the secret buried?

The United States, according to the history books, successfully landed men on the moon in the 1960s. They left many items and successfully set up an American flag in the general area of their arrival. They then left and were retrieved in the capsule designed for the reentry in the midst of the ocean. Going on to the eternal glory attached to their mission the astronauts making the trip left future moon shots to others. And there, of course, were other trips into space, including unmanned voyages around Mars, and others through our solar system and beyond.

For some reason, not readily apparent, a small group of people have always thought that the first Moon landing was staged, done for the publicity involved and perhaps to bring apparent obedience to the promise of John F. Kennedy, who resolved that the U.S. would land men on the moon before the end of the decade of the 1960s.

Mitch Silver, in an afterward of the novel, indicates that he is not one of the doubters involved with debunking the landing, but brings his readers a seat-of-the-pants novel outlining the possible consequences of a faked trip.

Gary Stephens, a filmmaker, is the son of one man that worked on the Moon Landing team. His father is killed in a boating accident and Gary begins to go through his Dad’s things. He discovers several tapes showing that the landing was staged. At the same time, China announces that they are ready to launch an expedition to the moon and plan to land in the same area as the U.S. did and plant their flag with the American banner showing solidarity, at least in the world of space travel.

Gary decides to take the tapes made by his father to the government and expose the farce. The novel does a very creditable job of describing the reactions of the U.S. to the news and their plans to launch another trip as quickly as possible to rectify the non-existence of material where it should be.

Research is evident in Silver’s descriptions of the process and events, and the creation of a definite all-nighter for his readers.

2/2020 Paul Lane

THE APOLLO DECEPTION by Mitch Silver. Severn House Publishers; First World Publication edition (February 4, 2020). ISBN 978-0727889751. 224p.

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A Nick Heller Novel, Book 4

From the publisher:

In New York Times bestselling author Joseph Finder’s electrifying new thriller, private investigator Nick Heller infiltrates a powerful wealthy family hiding something sinister.

Nick Heller is at the top of his game when he receives some devastating news: his old army buddy Sean has died of an overdose. Sean, who once saved Nick’s life, got addicted to opioids after returning home wounded from war.

Then at Sean’s funeral, a stranger approaches Nick with a job, and maybe also a way for Nick to hold someone accountable.

The woman is the daughter of a pharmaceutical kingpin worth billions. Now she wants to become a whistleblower, exposing her father and his company for burying evidence that its biggest money-maker was dangerously addictive. It was a lie that killed hundreds of thousands of people, including Sean.

All Nick has to do is find the document that proves the family knew the drug’s dangers. But Nick soon realizes that the sins of the patriarch are just the beginning.

Beneath the surface are barely concealed cabals and conspiracies: a twisting story of family intrigue and lethal corporate machinations. In a deadly game of chess that pits Nick against a family dynasty, against brothers and sisters with schemes of their own, Nick learns how far his enemy is willing to go to protect its name and its wealth.

There are commonalities about novels written by Joseph Finder that make him one of today’s top authors. These are excellent plots, well defined principal characters, a writing style that allows his readers to dive into the story, and reading it generally in one rewarding session. “House on Fire” is no exception and is easy to classify as a mesmerizing five star read.

Nick Heller, a private investigator used in previous novels by the author, is front and center in this book. Nick receives the unwelcome news that a good friend of his has died from an overdose of opioids and he is invited to the funeral. Once there he meets the daughter of the man in charge of the pharmaceutical company that manufactures and distributes the drug that his friend was hooked on and which killed him. The woman tells Nick that she has made it her life’s work to find evidence, indicated as suppressed, of the drug’s becoming addictive and harmful to the taker. She hires Nick to help her find the derogation study, known to exist, and help victims of the opioid go against her family’s company in order to collect funds that could help them financially in surviving their lives of drug dependency.

The story moves Nick through meeting the family at a dinner and then again while attending a corporate sales meeting as a guest of the lady that hired him. Finder takes the reader through the politics of the family owning the company and paints a realistic picture of what undoubtedly goes on in any situation where a great deal of money is involved. Who hates who, who loves who and what are the schemes to keep on the good side of the patriarch of the family who controls who gets what. Nick had lost his wife in a previous novel and while not actively searching for another has several instances of sexual activity in “House on Fire.” This, in no surprise, includes the woman that hired him to help find evidence against the company that she and her family have an interest in. The addition of a little spice serves to make Nick a human being with normal needs rather than a superman.

The ending is one with an interesting twist but becomes logical as the story unfolds. As stated it is a five-star novel, and the only thing that is negative is that Joseph Finder does not dash off novels one after the other but takes his time and it is usually at least a year between them. But certainly, it is well worth the wait.

2/2020 Paul Lane

HOUSE ON FIRE by Joseph Finder. Dutton (January 21, 2020). ISBN 978-1101985847. 384p.

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