Author: ekkarn

Assassin’s Game by Ward Larsen is a Home Run!

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Assassin’s Game – Ward Larsen (David Slaton #2)

 

I went to the library a couple of times last week to pick up books that I had on hold. I of course had to look at the new books, while I was there. One of the new books, Assassin’s Silence by Ward Larsen caught my eye. I had never seen the book before and was unfamiliar with the author. Anyway I picked it up and read the rave reviews on the back and decided that it was my type of book!.

I discovered, when I got home, that it was only book three in the David Slaton series. I went to my library’s website and discovered that they didn’t have book one in the series but they did have book two Assassin’s Game. One of the copies that they had was an e-book. That was fine with me. It saved me a trip to the library! It  also meant that I could start it quicker! So start it I did and it was a real page-turner for me! I loved the book and finished it in a couple of days!

About Ward Larsen

 

Since the release of The Perfect Assassin in 2004. Ward Larsen has released seven more novels. Two of those Stealing Trinity and The Messenger are stand alone thrillers. Of the remaining five books, three are part of the Jammer Davis and two are part of the David Slaton series. Jammer Davis is an aircraft accident investigator and of course David Slaton is an assassin.

Ward Larsen is  former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, Larsen flew over twenty missions in  Operation Desert Storm. He has served as a federal law enforcement officer, airline captain, and is a trained aircraft accident investigator. Larsen is also a three-time winner of the
Florida Book Award. And I better get started on The Perfect Assassin because it is currently being adapted into a major motion picture by Amber Entertainment!

About Assassin’s Game

 

David Slaton is a kidon or assassin for Israel’s Mossad. In Assassin’s Game, Slaton is brought back into the game by Mossad. His target is an Iranian scientist who is one the verge of providing Iran a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile. Mossad has made several attempts to kill the scientist, but they are thwarted each time, by Iranian intelligence. Because they fear there is a traitor supplying Iran information about the hits, a decision to go outside their service is made. Since the world thinks that David Slaton is dead he is the perfect choice for the assignment.

But David is living a quiet life in the Virginia suburbs. He has a new wife and is adjusting nicely to that life. After David’s ex-Mossad boss’s meeting with David’s wife in Sweden, ends in a shoot out and David’s wife’s disappearance, David is forced back into the game, to save his wife and to keep the bomb from Iran. The shoot-out in Stockholm left his boss in a coma and several agents dead. And it put a Swedish police detective on David’s trail!

Bottom Line:

Assassin’s Game was a terrific page-turner! I loved all of the well-drawn characters. David Slaton and Swedish detective Arne Sanderson are both characters that you could root for! The storyline was superb. with some twists and turns that I didn’t see coming!! It kept me guessing right up until the final pages. Bravo Mr. Larsen!

It’s been many years since I read Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal, but I agree with Stephen Coonts who wrote…..

“Ward Larsen has written a stunning thriller, one that ranks right up there with The Day of the Jackal. Frankly, this is the best nail-biting suspense novel I’ve read in years.”

So Check it Out! As for me I can’t wait to get started on some of Larsen’s other books. I already have Assassin’s Silence checked out of the library now. So I can I can start that right away, while I’m searching for those Jammer David books!!

Book 13 for 2017 – Rating: **** (five-stars)

Links for the Further Exploration of the Books of Ward Larsen

Author’s Website
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
Amazon

February Reads Take Me All Over Europe!

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 February Reads – Books 12 to 9…..

 

So far this month I have finished four books. Those books have taken me to a variety of counties where I met a lot of interesting characters. I am writing about the books in the reverse order of when I read them…

Book Number 12 The Hermit by Thomas Rydahl took me to the Canary Islands.There I met a 65-year-old taxi driver from Denmark, Erhard Jorgenson. Erhard lives alone in a shack near the resort of Fuerteventura. Erhard’s life is changed forever,after a car is found washed up on the beach. A dead 3 month old baby is found in a cardboard box on the back seat. The police try to quickly and quietly close the case by having a prostitute  claim she was the mother. Erhard knows that is wrong and for the sake of the baby he wants to prove what really happened!

During the course of his investigation Erhard makes some questionable decisions are in the name of advancing his investigation. At times I thought the story dragged a little and some of  Erhard’s actions bothered me. But In the end I The Hermit was a great read. Others thought so too. As The Hermit won the 2015 Glass Key award as the best Nordic crime novel! Rating: 4 stars

 

Black Widow - Chris Brookmyre a2017 reading challenge book

Book Number 11 – Black Widow  -Christopher Brookmyre.

Black Widow is set in Scotland, Over the last several years, I have visited Scotland many times, via the books of Peter May and others. Black Widow is book 7 in Brookmyre’s Jack Parlabane series. In this book Lucy Elphinstone hires Jack to look into the disappearance of her brother Peter. Peter went missing after his car slid off of a snow-covered road and ended up in the river. Lucy and two police detectives feel that Peter may have met with foul play. And the likely suspect is his wife of six months,successful surgeon Diana Jager aka bitchblade!

It seemed to me that the story took a long tine to develop. I had a little trouble with Brookmyre switching back and forth from the first to the third person in the narrative. I thought it was a little strange that Jack Parlabane didn’t become an important part of the story until the second half of the book! The last half of the book certainly made up for any of the shortcomings of the book in its first half! And the ending was great!

Black Widow won the 2016 McIlvanney Prize for Scottish crime book of the year an honor it rightly deserved. Rating- 4.5 stars

All that Man Is - David Szalay

Book 10 All That Man Is by David Szalay

All That Man Is took me to many places across the European continent. It is a collect of short vignettes of nine different men all at different stages of their lives. With each vignette the man in the story is a little older than the previous one. Typically I don’t read books  like All That Man Is,  And for that reason, I’ll let Goodreads tell you about it……

A magnificent and ambitiously conceived portrait of contemporary life, by a genius of realism.

Nine men. Each of them at a different stage in life, each of them away from home, and each of them striving–in the suburbs of Prague, in an overdeveloped Alpine village, beside a Belgian motorway, in a dingy Cyprus hotel–to understand what it means to be alive, here and now. Tracing a dramatic arc from the spring of youth to the winter of old age, the ostensibly separate narratives of All That Man Is aggregate into a picture of a single shared existence, a picture that interrogates the state of modern manhood while bringing to life, unforgettably, the physical and emotional terrain of an increasingly globalized Europe. And so these nine lives form an ingenious and new kind of novel, in which David Szalay expertly plots a dark predicament for the twenty-first-century man. Read More

All That Man is was a Man Booker Prize Nominee (2016), and a Gordon Burn Prize (2016 )winner and once again deservedly so! Rating: 4 stars.

A Foreign Country - Charles CummingBook 9  A Foreign Country  – Charles Cumming.

A Foreign Country is book one of Cumming’s Thomas Kell series. The settings for A Foreign Country include France, Tunisia and England. Thirty years ago a young au pair walked away from the family she was working for. She left without a word of good-bye. Now the reason that young girl left could rock the world of the first woman director of Britain’s MI6. From  Goodreads..

On the vacation of a lifetime in Egypt, an elderly French couple are brutally murdered. Days later, a meticulously-planned kidnapping takes place on the streets of Paris. Amelia Levene, the first female Chief of MI6, has disappeared without a trace, six weeks before she is due to take over as the most influential spy in Europe. It is the gravest crisis MI6 has faced in more than a decade. Desperate not only to find her, but to keep her disappearance a secret, Britain’s top intelligence agents turn to one of their own: disgraced MI6 officer Thomas Kell. Tossed out of the Service only months before, Kell is given one final chance to redeem himself – find Amelia Levene at any cost. Read More

I really enjoyed this book. The book moved at a brisk pace and I like the character of Thomas Kell and others around him.There was a fair amount of suspense particularly at the end. I believe I will be visiting with Thomas Kell again and again. I already have  checked out from my library the Kindle edition of A Colder War (Thomas Kell # 2). While  A Divided Spy (Thomas Kell #3), was just released on Valentine’s Day! So maybe when I finish A Colder War,  A Divided Spy will be available at the library,

Final Thoughts

Summarizing I have read twelve books so far in 2017. That puts me ahead of  schedule to reach my goal of 60 books for the year. I had never read any books written by any of the authors I have read  so far in February. Additionally, Black Widow and A Foreign Country are both part of a series, that I will definitely be reading more of!

I noticed after writing this post that none of the books I read this month are set in the USA. I guess I needed a vacation from all he turbulence in our country since January 20th……..

 

 

2017 Reading Challenges Mini-Update (Feb 6, 2017)

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An Amazing Start on My 2017 Reading Challenges

 

Ok so I do believe that I would be hard pressed to find two months in the last 15 years where I have read more books than January and February of 2017. In January I read  books and so far in February I have read three more! Bringing 2017’s total of books read to 11! In order to achieve my 2017 Reading Challenge goal of 60 books, I need to average 5 books per month.  I am already above that average in the first week of February!! Goodreads says that right now I am 5 books ahead of schedule! Woo Hoo!

Now the one bad thing about this is that I have been reading more than writing. Consequently, I am  seven books behind in writing reviews. The table below lists that books that I have read so far this year. (The links are to my review of the book)

No Title Author
11 Black Widow Chris Brookmyre
10 All That Man Is David Szalay
9 A Foreign Country Charles Cumming
8 Livia Lone Barry Eisler
7 Ruler of the Night David Morrell
6 A Puzzle in a Pear Tree Parnell Hall
5 How to Run the World Parag Khanna
4 The Lazarus War – Artefact Jamie Sawyer
3 The Killing Kind Chris Holm
2 In the Midst of Death Lawrence Block
1 The Critic Peter May

 

I am going to group the books according to the Reading Challenge that they fit into. So the future posts will look like this:

2017 Mystery/Thriller Reading Challenge

 Series that are new to me

Jack Parlabane – Chris Brookmyre – Black Widow
Thomas Kell – Charles Cumming – A Foreign Country
Livia Lone – Barry Eisler – Livia Lone

Series that I am Behind on/ Series that I am Current with

Puzzle Lady – Parnell Hall  – A Puzzle in a Pear Tree – 
Thomas De Quncey -David Morrell –  Ruler of the Night –

2017 Literature Reading Challenge/ Nonfiction Reading Challenge

General Fiction

All that Man is – David Szalay

Nonfiction

How to Run the World – Parag Khanna

So now I’m off to pick out my next few books and start to read!!! Be back later with the first of the above posts!!

RGranddad’s Anti-Aging Efforts Showing Dividends?

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Anti-Aging Efforts Update – February 14,2017

 

Ok so once again I need to apologize for not writing on this blog for a while….. (Short Break)

Ok  I’m back I just had to figure out how to download an ebook from my library. I haven’t done it for a while and I needed to reinstall the Overdrive app on my iPhone to do it! Anyway I did it and just now downloaded the book! Now the question becomes do I want to read The Perfect Assassin, book one in the David Slator series from Ward Larsen first, or continue Assassin’s Silence book three in the series, that I checked out of the library yesterday!! Can you say too many books to little time!! oh, well, I think book one has to come first!!

Now back to my original comment about my lack of writing on this blog. When I did write a post a few weeks ago I wrote that won of the reasons that I had not posted anything was that I felt guilty because of my lack of effort in attempting to slow down  my biologic clock! Well it appears that my efforts to do do over the first few weeks of 2017 may have erased that guilt!!

This Year’s Check-Up 

Last week I went to my belated 2016 yearly physical and had blood work done and an EKG. My fear was that my cholesterol level would have climbed over 200! In 2015 it had reached its highest level at 196. So that is why I started eating a little better no late night cakes or cookies an d a few more fruits and veggies. It is also why I started exercising a little differently in the mornings by going back to my old routine that included Kundalini yoga, light weights and resistance bands. The exercising and dieting has also has made it easier to start running again.

The bottom line is that my total cholesterol level dropped to 176. That is the lowest its been since 2013!  My triglycerides level also dropped 14 points from 106 to 91, The only negative was that my LDL Cholesterol level. It was still high, but the good news is that it dropped 15 points from a high of 125 to 110. The target level is 100, so I am not that far above the normal level. So I need to look for those foods that lower your LDL levels!

My EKG and blood pressure were both ok, so my doctor even suggested that I may not need to go back to the cardiologist! However, I think I will still make an appointment with him!

Running

So far in February I have run four times. The last two runs have been over a 3.25 mile course. They have both been slow steady runs with a pace between 11:20 and 11:30 min/mile. Today I will be hitting the road a little after noon and I will tell you about it later today! Maybe I’ll try for 4 miles!!

To keep me going I started to look for 5Ks scheduled near the end of April. The one that I think that I may shoot for is  the Collingswood HS Athletic Hall of Fame 5k. It’s scheduled for Saturday April 22nd. And since it’s in Colingswood maybe I can even get my wife to go with me!!

Featured Image from Lifeaura.com

2017 Reading Challenges Mini-Update (Feb 6, 2017)

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An Amazing Start on My 2017 Reading Challenges

 

Ok so I do believe that I would be hard pressed to find two months in the last 15 years where I have read more books than January and February of 2017. In January I read  books and so far in February I have read three more! Bringing 2017’s total of books read to 11! In order to achieve my 2017 Reading Challenge goal of 60 books, I need to average 5 books per month.  I am already above that average in the first week of February!! Goodreads says that right now I am 5 books ahead of schedule! Woo Hoo!

Now the one bad thing about this is that I have been reading more than writing. Consequently, I am  seven books behind in writing reviews. The table below lists that books that I have read so far this year. (The links are to my review of the book)

No Title Author
11 Black Widow Chris Brookmyre
10 All That Man Is David Szalay
9 A Foreign Country Charles Cumming
8 Livia Lone Barry Eisler
7 Ruler of the Night David Morrell
6 A Puzzle in a Pear Tree Parnell Hall
5 How to Run the World Parag Khanna
4 The Lazarus War – Artefact Jamie Sawyer
3 The Killing Kind Chris Holm
2 In the Midst of Death Lawrence Block
1 The Critic Peter May

 

I am going to group the books according to the Reading Challenge that they fit into. So the future posts will look like this:

2017 Mystery/Thriller Reading Challenge

 Series that are new to me

Jack Parlabane – Chris Brookmyre – Black Widow
Thomas Kell – Charles Cumming – A Foreign Country
Livia Lone – Barry Eisler – Livia Lone

Series that I am Behind on/ Series that I am Current with

Puzzle Lady – Parnell Hall  – A Puzzle in a Pear Tree – 
Thomas De Quncey -David Morrell –  Ruler of the Night –

2017 Literature Reading Challenge/ Nonfiction Reading Challenge

General Fiction

All that Man is – David Szalay

Nonfiction

How to Run the World – Parag Khanna

So now I’m off to pick out my next few books and start to read!!! Be back later with the first of the above posts!!

A Recap of This Week’s Runs! (Jan 23-29)

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Week of Jan 23-29 – Three Runs Woo-Hoo!

What a week! It’s the first week in I don’t know how long that I actually run on three days! Maybe just maybe my biologic clock slowed down just a little this week. I know that  I am starting to feel a lot better. The trick will be to keep it going.

In addition to this week’s three runs,I also did a 20 minute stationary bike workout on Tuesday. I really don’t use the stationary bike much and when I do I always think that it doesn’t do much for me. But after doing that 20 minute workout with TriJake Fitness I think that the problem is me and not the bike! I do believe that I will be doing more bike workouts in the future!!

But now back to the runs. I ran on Wednesday, Friday and again today. (I start my week on Monday)

Wednesday’s Run

Wednesday’s run was a 2.5 mile run over the same course that I have previously run earlier this month. I just added a little to the 2.1 course to bring up to 2.5 miles. It is an out and back course over a route I usually run.My overall time for the run was 25:11 which is an average pace of 11:13 minutes per mile. The splits were 11:09, 11:29 and 10:20 over the last half-mile.

The soundtrack of the run was the new release 3 Minutes to Midnight from New Age  guitarist Lawson Rollins.

Friday’s Run

Because it was really windy on Friday, I created a new 2.5 mile course. I laid it out to minimize the distance I would be running into the wind! So the majority of the run was cross-wind. The total time for the run 28:02. Average Pace 11:10 /mile. The splits 11:07, 11:12 and .5 @11:14. The good thing about this run was that my average heart rate went down to 144 bpm!

The soundtrack for the run was Talk About That – the latest release from the legendary John Mayall.

Sunday’s Run 

Today I ran the same course as Friday. The good thing was that it was not quite as cold or windy! The good thing was that I ran. I could have put it off because we had to go to a viewing this afternoon around the time that I usually run. But rather than just putting it off until tomorrow I laced them up and ran earlier in the day! Yeah me! Ah, life’s little victories!

The run started out a little slower than my previous runs this week, but that was a good thing. Because mile number to was faster than one and my overall all time for the run went down to 27:52. Not very much but when you’re 65 every little second counts!! My average pace for the run was 11:07 right around the pace for the first mile on my previous runs! The splits were 11:12, 11:07 and the final .5 miles was 10:56 a very little kick!!

The soundtrack for the run was Tangled in Dream the 2000 release from an Australia Progressive Metal band from Australia!

I know that all of the above is actually pretty boring to most of you, but it helps keep me focused and moving forward! Now what I have decided to do is to review the albums at Freewheelin’ Music Safari. I will provide links to the reviews on this site and to the runs on Freewheelin’ Music. So in the future I will try to do the reviews first!! But for the above albums you will have to check back!!

The featured image is me battling a stroller several years ago at a Halloween 5K!

A New Year – Back to the Basics and Running!

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Renaissance Granddad Returns to an Old Workout and Starts Running Again!!

 

Ok so I haven’t written anything here in a very long time! One of the reasons is that I switched and started posting more at my original website Me, Myself, Music and Mysteries, and most recently I decided that I was going to focus more on the books that I read, so I started a new website This Man Reads. The second reason is last year I sucked at turning my biological clock backwards. In actuality, I think the clocks moved faster last year! Anyway, I have vowed to do better this year.  So far that is happening and hence this post!!

Actually, the move to getting in shape and slowing down that speeding biologic clock started at the end of 2016!  For several years I did a simple 15-minute workout before work. The workout consisted of a 5-minute warm-up and tuning in using the Ek Ong Kar mantra. followed by 5 minutes of Kundalini exercises and then 5 minutes of light weights and resistance bands. Last year I stopped doing that workout and started doing more yoga in the morning. Additionally, for years I ran three days a week. Typically, I ran four miles to days a week and a longer run between 5-8 miles on the weekend. For a variety of reasons in 2016 I hardly ran at all.

Renaissance Granddad Postpones Yearly Doctor Visits!

 

When December rolled around and I was faced with my yearly physical and my visit to my cardiologist, I put them both off. until after the holidays. It’s not that I am in bad shape, just not the shape I am normally in. My weight is about 5-6 pounds over my  typical weight and 12 pounds over my running weight. Additionally, I have not been eating all that well!

So near the end of December I decided to go back to the old routine on a daily basis. On days that I work at Target I do the routine in segments of  3, 6, and 6 minutes. On the non-Target days I do the routine as follows 3  minute meditation, 6 minutes Kundalini, 6 minutes light weights ( 5 and 15 lbs) and a kettle bell and 6 minutes using a variety of bands. The result has been that while I have not lost weight I have lost some inches, I think!

A Return to An Old Workout Leads to a Return to Running – Hopefully!!

Anyway, I feel better and this has led me to the streets!! Yes this week I have run twice, so far! I hope to make it three days with a run tomorrow. And while I have not run far, both runs were 2.1 miles, my overall pace  was not bad the first day was 11:22 and the second 11:15 min/mile. Both times were better than I ran back in August and October!

And Doctor Appointments!

I also made an appointment with my doctor for my yearly EKG and blood work in two weeks and will make an appointment with the cardiologist  for a week or so after that, so I can take all the results to the appointment!

So the plan is to watch what I eat and see if the added running can help me lose a few pounds within  the next two weeks. So that I go to both appointments feeling good about myself! And maybe I can start moving  my biologic clock in the reverse direction!!

Wish Me Luck!! Don’t worry you’ll hear about the running!

The Lazarus War::Artefact by Jamie Sawyer-A Fantastic Ride!

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The Lazarus War Artefact - Jamie Sawyer

Originally posted on January 18, 2017. Updated October 2025 with new links, images, and reflections.

The Background

Reading the Lazarus War :Atefact was a return to the years when I read a lot of Science Fiction. Here’s how I tried to get back……

Back in the 70s and early 80s I read a fair amount of science fiction. I read several books by Robert Heinlein, some Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Herbert, James P Hogan, Orson Scott Card and others.

Since then I’ve read the odd science fiction book here and there.  Among my favorites were the books of John Scalzi,, particularly the Old Man’s War series! In 2015  I added a Science Fiction Challenge to my other Reading Challenges. My goal was to read 12 science fiction books. I made it 3/4 of the way there, reading 9 books. Last year I reduced the number of sci-fi books to 6 i guess I figured I could make that goal easily! Wrong! I only read 1 book!

Anyway, this year I raised the goal back to 12 books. I know I already have several sci-fi books on the Kindle that I want to read! The whole point of the opening is that I have already matched last years total of sci-fi books read! The fourth book read for 2017 is The Lazarus War: Artefact  by Jamie Sawyer. And I know I  will surpass my 2017 sci-fi reads because I can’t wait to read The Lazarus War:Legion book two in the series!!

The Lazarus War: Artefact

The Lazarus War:Artefact  is just what  Jack Campbell, author of the Lost Fleet novels calls it

“a gripping read that moves at warp speed.”  

The lead character in the story is Captain Conrad Harris who leads a four-person team of simulants into battle against The Krell a fearsome and deadly alien race.

After returning from another mission where their simulant bodies die, Harris and his crew are sent on a deadly mission into the maelstrom, home of the Krell. Their mission is to find and rescue a research team that the Alliance has not had contact with for over a year! The research team was sent to the planet Helios to study a strange Artefact. The Artefact is huge monolithic structure on the planet’s surface that seems to have a strange effect on the Krell. It draws them to it like a month to a flame. But yet seems to drive them crazy!

The mission turns deadly when the Krell destroy the ship transporting Harris’ and his crew. Harris and his crew  survive, making it to the planet.Now they face the long odds of saving the research team and getting off of the planet without being killed by the Krell! In addition, the Artefact may provide Harris a key to finding the love of his life, who was lost in the Maelstrom!!

Bottom-Line 

The Lazarus War: Artefact was a five-star book for me!! It has everything I love in a science fiction book. Artefact is fast-paced action-packed story, with deadly aliens and lots of questions to be answered.  What is the purpose of the Artefact?  Why did the research center lose touch with the Alliance? And most importantly how the hell will they get off of Helios alive?

I also enjoyed the simulant technology. Captain Harris and his crew transfer from their real bodies to their enhanced bigger and more powerful simulant bodies to fight the Krell. Their real bodies remain suspended in a liquid on their ship.The squad members feel themselves die when their simulants are killed. But they are then extracted back into their real bodies and live to fight again.Because he has died and been resurrected so many times, Conrad Harris has earned the nickname Lazarus .

In an interview included in the back of the novel Sawyer describes the simulants as an extension of our current drone warfare.  Sawyer is intrigues by the fact that by day pilots located in Colorado are fighting wars in countries that they may have never set foot in. Then they return to their home at night  and lead a normal life.

So summarizing I enjoyed everything about Artefact. The fast paced action packed story, the main characters and the interplay between Harris and his squad. Additionally, the story left you wanting more!

I’ll leave you with the words of Neil Asher another Sci-Fi writer whose work I have enjoyed over the last couple of years….

“Alien biomechs… terrorism, subterfuge and traitors…starshipssporting particle beam weapons,  railguns the size of skyscapers. laser batteries, missles. This dear readers is good stuff!

Update: I confess The Lazarus War Book : Two:Legion has been on my TBR shelves since around the time I wrote this post. Maybe it’s time to read it and other books by Jamie Sawyer Ya’Think!

 

Links
Hachette Book Group
Goodreads
Amazon

Fantastic Fiction

About – Jamie Sawyer

Jamie Sawyer was born in 1979 in Newbury, Berkshire. He studied law at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, acquiring a master’s degree in human rights and surveillance law. Jamie is a full-time barrister, practising in criminal law. When he isn’t working in law or writing, Jamie enjoys spending time with his family in Essex. He is an enthusiastic reader of all types of SF, especially classic authors such as Heinlein and Haldeman.More

 

 

The Killing Kind – Chris Holm – 2016 Anthony Winner!

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The Killing Kind – Michael Hendricks #1 – Chris Holm (Book 3 0f 2016)

 

One of the sub-challenges of my 2017 Mystery/Thriller Reading Challenge is to read  twelve books written by authors whose work I have never read.The first of those books and the third overall book read in 2017 is The Killing Kind by Chris Holm.

The Killing Kind is the first novel in Holm’s Michael Hendricks series. Hendricks is a hitman with a twist. He hits hitmen before they can complete their hit. Michael contacts the target of the hit and offers to save the target for a fee. Usually around ten times what the cost of the hit. This action helps ease Hendricks’ mind, because even though he kills for a living he is only killing killers!!

The only problem is that the people who are hiring the hitmen are losing not only hitmen, but the target is still alive and knows there is a price on his head!! So they take action and hire a hitman to take care of Hendricks! And he is one mean son of a bitch!! But he is not the only one out to get Hendricks.

Special Agent Charlotte Thompson of the FBI is also on his trail. Because Hendricks is so good at not leaving any clues at the scene of his hits, as to his identity, Charlotte has labeled him the “Ghost”  With both these people on his tail, Hendricks’ job just got a whole lot deadlier!!

Hendricks does what he does well because, he was once a covert operative for a false-flag unit of the US military, .But he left his old life behind when a mission in Afghanistan went south. There was only one known survivor and it wasn’t Michael.  Since the mission was off the books, Michael just let the world think he was dead., including his beloved fiancée

The only person who knows Micheal is alive is the sole survivor of the mission Lester. Myles. Lester now runs The Bait Shop a bar in Portland, Maine. In the failed mission, Lester lost his legs and now is confined to a wheelchair. .But he is a computer wiz and Michael’s right-hand man. They work well together to make Michael the success he is.

Praise for The Killing Kind

 

THE KILLING KIND, has garnered a lot of praise. It was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a Boston Globe Best Book of 2015, and Strand Magazine’s #1 Book of 2015.  In addition it  was also nominated for a Barry, a Lefty, and a Macavity. Finally, I decided to read it because I saw in Mystery Scene Magazine that it won the 2016 Anthony Award for Best Novel!!

Final Thoughts……

Overall, The Killing Kind was a four-star out of five book for me. With every thing that he has gone through Hendricks is a character you can root for. I thought that the story line was engaging and keep the pages flying by. There really wasn’t any mystery in the story, but Holm built the suspense and tension throughout the book. Then it all exploded in the last few pages!!

I for one will be checking out Red Right Hand book two in the series! I just placed a request for the book at my library!! So Check out both of the books!!

Links for the Further Exploration of the Books of Chris Holm

Authors’ Website
Facebook
Twitter
Amazon
Goodreads

In the Midst of Death – Matthew Scudder #3 – Lawrence Block

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Book 2  of 2017 – A Return to the World of Matthew Scudder….thanks to Lawrence Block

 

One of my Reading Challenges for 2017 is to catch up on a few of the mystery and thriller series that I am behind on. The series that I had in mind include: Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon series, Steve Berry’s Cotton Malone  or maybe Alex Berenson’s John Wells series. What I didn’t envision was going back to a series whose last book I read in, oh, 1994!  Anyway, that’s what I did this week when I read In the Midst of Death – book number 3 in Lawrence Block’s Matt Scudder series. I really didn’t set out to read the book. It just happened to be sitting out on a pile of books in the basement, when I was looking for something. Anyway, I picked it up, and didn’t put it down until I finished it!  Lucky for me it was only 246 pages long!!!

Now when I stopped reading the Matt Scudder books, I didn’t stop reading books by Lawrence Block. What I did was switch series and read his Bernie Rhodenbarr series, The Burglar who….. These books had a lot lighter reading than the Matt Scudder books. They were fun! Anyway I read seven of those books up until book 9 The Burglar in the Rye published in 1998.checking with Goodreads I see  that there are three more books in the series. Hmm, maybe I wll come back to that series!!

Matthew Scudder Books I’ve Read

Anyway back to Matthew Scudder. I started to read that series in 1988. Good God! almost 30 years ago!  The first book I read was When the Sacred Gin Mill Closes, book number six in the series.Somehow then  I missed book  7 Out on the Cutting Edge and next read books 8 and 9  A Ticket to the Boneyard and A Dance at the Slaughterhouse, respectively. Cheery titles, eh?  I guess after those I went for the lighter  stuff!!

In The Midst of Death 

From Amazon:

Bad cop Jerry Broadfield didn’t make any friends on the force when he volunteered to squeal to an ambitious d.a. about police corruption. Now he’saccused of murdering a call girl. Matthew Scudder doesn’t think Broadfield’s a killer, but the cops aren’t about to help the unlicensed p.i. prove it — and they may do a lot worse than just get in his way. Read More

My Thoughts on In the Midst of Death

I really enjoyed this book and am now harboring thoughts of re-entering the world of Matthew Scudder. Which is the gritty side of New York City. Matthew is a an ex-cop. He seen life at it worst and for many years used alcohol to get him through it. It’s not until book #5 in the series  Eight Million Ways to Die that Matthew comes to terms with his alcoholism. Matthew is a flawed man but he sees his flaws  and tries to make amends.

Overall the pace of the book was good. The story line never dragged or gave you a reason to put it down. The plot had enough twists and turns  to keep you guessing as to who the murderer was. And as I’ve already said Matt and the other characters are terrific!

Lawrence Block Thoughts on Series Characters in Mystery Scene Magazine

In the holiday 2016 issue of Mystery Scene Magazine. Lawrence Block wrote an article titled “Some Thoughts on Series Characters”. In the article Block compares the characters of Bernie Rhodenbarr and  Matthew Scudder. Her describes the Bernie Rhodenbarr series as a static series.

“Both Bernie and the private universe he inhabits stay essentially the same forever. i’ve never been specific about his age., but he is somewhere in his mid-30s in the first book . Burglars Can’t Be Choosers, first published in 1977 – and he is the same age almost 40 years later.

Bernie doesn’t age – and neither does he change. He’s not stuck in 1977, his home town of New York is up to date in whtever book you encounter him, and he has to be concerned about security cameras and high-tech locks, but he still leads the same life, earns the same unlawful living and has the same doomed relationships with women.”

“…..Matthew Scudder, on the other hand, has aged in real time from one book to the next. . That was never my intention when I began writing about him. I really didn’t give it much thought. but I assumed he’d go on drinking at Jimmy Armstrong’s Saloon as long as his liver held out.

But I discovered he had to age and he had to change. Unlike Bernie Rhodenbarr, Matthew Scudder lived in a far more realistic universe,  and the books I was writing about him hewed to a more realistic line. How could  he fail to be affected by the  experiences he had in his previous adventure?”- From Mystery Scene Magazine Holiday 2016 p 28

Block goes on ti o discuss how in Book 4 (next up for This Man?) A Stab in the Dark. Matthew finds that his alcoholism was becoming more of a problem and  ends with Matthew walking in, and then quickly leaving an AA meeting.

So I know that most of the series I read are not static. The characters change and evolve and that’s what I love about  series. Joe Pickett and his family are not the same family that I met in Open Season  sixteen  books ago!  Nor  is Cork O-Connor and his family. Now Stephanie Plum I don’t know about!

How about anyone else? Have your favorite characters evolved or are they static?

Links for the Further Exploration of the Books of Lawrence Block

 

Author’s Website
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Amazon
Goodreads

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