Bye Bye Baby By Ace Atkins

Bye Bye Baby is the most fun I’ve had in a while with a smart and witty thriller. Ace Atkins writes a charming protagonist in Spenser with hilarious comebacks and badass lines that made me fall in love with him instantly. With this being my first Spenser story, I wasn’t sure what to expect going into the book but it’s safe to say my expectations were blown sky-high.

The latest Spenser adventure finds the renowned Boston PI working a timely political case where a young congresswoman advocating for immigrant rights is targeted by a white supremacist group. Not one for sharp political leanings, Spenser’s only concern with the case is the well-being of the congresswoman matched in intensity only by his dislike for bullies. With double crosses and shaky alliances in store for Spenser, he depends on his sparkling personality, ingenious sleuthing skills, and his dependable partner, Hawk, to put an end to the Neo-Nazis plaguing his town.

Right off the bat, there’s a distinctive aura reverberating from the easy-going narrative style that feels natural to read and get immersed in. The characters and settings convey a blissful union of the old school detective tales and the fast-paced modern-day setting. The calm familiarity exuding from Ace Atkins’s writing style create an impression of a colorful universe with a rich history that made me want to pick up the previous books in the series as soon as I finished this one. 

Spenser walks in the perfect middle ground between being awkwardly glee and depressingly glum. I caught myself laughing out loud countless times as Spenser took care of business with a light demeanor and a mean right cross. At the same time, his uncompromising moral compass is subtly displayed through meaningful peeks underneath his friendly persona when he shares his displeasure at dealing with racists, not only verbally but also physically, building up to intense standoffs and fisticuffs.

The pacing and turn of events in the story feel skillfully grounded with a tinge of dark comedy. Spenser is not shown to be a one-man army, which makes the realistic scale of the narrative all the more exciting and intriguing as the plot unravels at a breakneck pace without rushing the magic of its character-driven storytelling. One thing is for certain, Bye Bye Baby is undoubtedly going to be one of the most memorable thrillers of the upcoming year.

---

Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.

Purchase Bye Bye Baby
(Note: most indie bookstores can fulfill an order as quickly as larger retailers. Please consider contacting them for your next purchase.)

Barrington Books
Chapter 2 Books
Murder By The Book
Once Upon A Crime
The Book Dragon
The Poisoned Pen

Box 88 By Charles Cumming

Box 88 is a fantastic love letter to old-school John le Carré styled espionage thrillers that shine with a slow-burn narrative involving two different timelines that intersect beautifully for bombshell revelations. 

Charles Cumming introduces the world to Lachlan Kite, an operative for a super clandestine organization born of an alliance between American and British intelligence agencies. When Kite is abducted by Iranian mercenaries who believe him to hold a vault full of secrets pertaining to the Lockerbie incident, he must walk the delicate line of giving out misinformation without getting caught in the lies, for he and his pregnant wife face imminent danger. The answers lie in the past, where readers get to experience the origins of Kite as a young man in the early 90’s plucked from a strict boarding school for his first ever intelligence mission to infiltrate a family with ties to terrorist financiers. It’s a race against time for Kite to figure out a way to escape his predicament before he has to divulge the secret his captors are looking for.

The narrative constantly jumps back and forth between present and past to propel the story in harmony, giving keen insights into what made Lachlan Kite the man he is today. However, the back-and-forth does not detract from the fulfilling experience of reading a fleshed-out story that’s as riveting as it is emotional in establishing the events and characters as thoroughly believable. Box 88 peeks behind the curtains to emphasize the personal consequences of secretive lives and constant deception. 

Along with a strong emotional epicenter, Box 88 is filled with realistic tradecraft for espionage operatives utilizing creative intelligence-gathering apparatuses to further their investigations, placing a premium on subtlety and discretion, perfect for fans of nitty gritty espionage thrillers. 

Box 88’s strength lies in the development of a brand-new spy icon with the cerebral charm of the golden-era spies, dramatic flair for rich expressions, and strong stomach for inflicting violence in a world where cutthroat politics has given birth to extreme measures. You will feel compelled to get your hands on the sequel.

---

Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.

Purchase Box 88
(Note: most indie bookstores can fulfill an order as quickly as larger retailers. Please consider contacting them for your next purchase.)

Barrington Books
Chapter 2 Books
Murder By The Book
Once Upon A Crime
The Book Dragon
The Poisoned Pen

Insurrection Day By Chris Hauty

Insurrection Day is a prime example of Chris Hauty’s swift and easy-going prose which grabs you by the shoulders and immediately immerses you fully in the pages.

This is an interesting retelling of the infamous January 6 incursion at The Capitol, this time with Hayley Chill smack dab in the middle of crisis, trying to get away from the hordes of white supremacists when she stumbles upon Russian operatives using the chaos to steal some vital information from the secrets-filled offices. With limited resources and time, Hayley must improvise and stop the enemies of America from getting their hands on damning information.

Paying respect to the time-sensitive and political nature of the real-life event, Hauty skillfully captures the horror and desperation of the overwhelming situation. As tough as Hayley Chill is, she is believably shaken up by the unpredictable turn of events; her feelings of frightening turmoil reverberate through the pages as she tries to escape the zombie-like apocalypse.

The Russian angle brings a cool twist to the narrative, changing the dynamic of the story from prey to hunter for Chill as she chases after the Russian operatives with a boiling desire for retribution, paving the way for Chill’s ingenious takedowns with unsuspecting lanyards and suppressed pistols. 

Despite being a short story, Insurrection Day drastically impacts Hayley Chill in ways that will surely prove to be bigger triggers down the line. It’s a winning combination of action and emotions. Chris Hauty has done a superb job setting up a highly entertaining and thought-provoking bridge between Savage Road and Storm Rising and I cannot wait to see what he has in store next.   

---

Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.

Covert Kill By Jason Kasper

Covert Kill is a fantastic continuation of the Shadow Strike series, taking the action to Nigeria where the special-ops team is sent to assassinate a terrorist linked to the devastating attack on US soil during the events of the first Shadow Strike book. Jason Kasper dives into the nitty gritty psychological toll of the morally ambiguous rules of war where most of the enemy combatants are barely past their teenage years.

Keeping in line with the spirit of streamlined and grounded narrative, the story takes place prominently in the same geophysical region in a timespan of mere days, evoking a pressing and time-sensitive essence of the events in the story as the team juggles between their primary mission and the morally-just detours to protect innocent souls. The conflicts not only present extraordinarily crafted action sequences that put you in the front row seat for the cinematic-violent exuberance but also highlight the psyches of the leading characters to present them as more complex and intriguing than simple gunslingers in the modern-day Wild West. As aptly worded in the narrative, “a fight not between good and evil but between combatants with various shades of brutality”. The detailed research into field tradecraft as well as the local ambiance of Nigeria create an immersive effect of dialing out everything else except the narrative while you’re reading. 

Jason Kasper keeps readers and the characters alike on their toes by shaking things up with Covert Kill. While the Shadow Strike team has proven its efficiency in taking out the enemy with brutal and swift measures time and time again, this time they’re required to step out of their comfort zones with more intelligence-gathering-centric tasks, creating fun opportunities to see the team adapt to the changing circumstances with some smooth and some not-so-smooth outcomes. The unpredictability keeps the narrative exciting and the pages flipping. 

Kickass dialogue, spectacular action, and a gripping plot that keeps turning and twisting just when you seem to have it all figured out; these elements make up the core of Covert Kill, creating a fantastic read for thriller fans looking for their next dose of high-octane storytelling.

---

Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.

Purchase Covert Kill
(Note: most indie bookstores can fulfill an order as quickly as larger retailers. Please consider contacting them for your next purchase.)

Barrington Books
Chapter 2 Books
Murder By The Book
Once Upon A Crime
The Book Dragon
The Poisoned Pen

Rogue Asset By Brian Andrews and Jeffery Wilson

Rogue Asset kicks off a new era of the Presidential Agent with beautifully crafted action sequences spearheaded by a brand-new protagonist who would easily stack up against John Rambo in terms of badassery and kill count.

When the US secretary of defense is abducted during a brazen kidnapping, the president decides to meet the challenge head-on by resurrecting the Presidential Agent program, bringing back the OG operative, Charley Castillo, with a slight twist; he has to train the next Presidential Agent to take over the reins. This ties into the introduction of US Marine Corps Captain P.K McCoy Jr., who is shortlisted as the most ideal candidate without his knowledge. An uneasy bond forms between mentor and mentee, one that develops gradually and naturally into a more nurturing relationship as the narrative progresses, speaking volumes for the incredible writing duo of Brain Andrews and Jeffery Wilson. The witty and ultimately warm banter between the two leads is one of the best aspects of the story.

As McCoy and Charley get on the hunt for the bad guys, stretching from Egypt to North Africa, the action is dialed up to the maximum setting, with McCoy demonstrating his Ranger training in tactically and aesthetically pleasing shootouts. The violence is not only present for delightful gratuity, but also to subtly demonstrate the asymmetrical change in spycraft and warfare where situations are more likely to go kinetic and as such require a balanced blend of an operator with both the mental acumen and the gunslinger skills to match the modern threats. The POV focuses more on building up McCoy’s character but does not overshadow Charley’s formidable and charming presence as the original Presidential Agent. His immeasurable experience with espionage tradecraft goes a long way in mentoring McCoy to sharpen his spy senses.

Andrews and Wilson bring back a beloved world of espionage characters and stories, all fueled up with enthralling twists, charismatic characters, and balls-to-the-wall action for the foreseeable future. Rogue Asset is one of the best action thrillers to finish the year with, and a must-read for fans of W.E.B Griffin’s work as well as general action thriller aficionados.

---

Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.

Purchase Rogue Asset
(Note: most indie bookstores can fulfill an order as quickly as larger retailers. Please consider contacting them for your next purchase.)

Barrington Books
Chapter 2 Books
Murder By The Book
Once Upon A Crime
The Book Dragon
The Poisoned Pen

48 Hours To Kill By Andrew Bourelle

48 Hours to Kill is by far the most intense crime thriller of the year, with viciously violent action, powerful dialogue and highly-enjoyable characters that leave a lasting impression on the readers.

Ethan Lockhart is serving a prison sentence when he hears the tragic news that his sister was murdered. Given a furlough release unexpectedly without any guards or tracking devices, Ethan has 48 hours to pay his respects at the funeral. What irks Ethan is that her sister’s body hasn’t been found, with the authorities stating there was enough evidence to support the idea that his sister was killed. The narrative builds up slightly slow at first in order to develop Ethan’s character properly as he struggles with the guilt of not being there for his sister who he loved more than anyone and anything. When he finds out there is more to his sister’s alleged murder, he vows to put his violent skills to use one last time. From that moment, the pace is anything but slow as the action ramps up with a simmering mystery that becomes clearer and clearer but never completely solved until a brilliantly unexpected twist in the final act which was hiding in plain sight all along. In the course of his investigation, Ethan teams up with his sister’s childhood best friend who always had a crush on Ethan. Their chemistry is electrifying and one of the best aspects of the story.

48 Hours to Kill is a love letter to readers who like their gripping mysteries with a balanced diet of both ingenuity for strong storytelling and brutal action that is not always as skillfully incorporated in crime thrillers/dramas. Andrew Bourelle rewards readers who pay close attention to details as the clues Ethan discovers are not spoon fed to readers but rather hidden in his encounters with other characters, resulting in an extremely immersive read that requires sharp thinking to keep up with Ethan’s deductions. For the icing on the cake, Ethan butts heads with gangsters and thugs who obstruct his quest for vengeance and truth, setting the stage for numerous bloody fisticuffs and shootouts that are some of the most realistically horrifying sequences involving burnt eyeballs and flipping thumbs hanging off wrists.

From start to finish, 48 Hours to Kill is an absolute page turner that irrevocably puts Andrew Bourelle on the list of upcoming thriller authors for fans to keep an eye out for. I would not be surprised if this is adapted to the big screen soon; it has a cinematic spark that would work well with a lead like Ryan Gosling.

---

Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.

Purchase 48 Hours To Kill
(Note: most indie bookstores can fulfill an order as quickly as larger retailers. Please consider contacting them for your next purchase.)

Barrington Books
Chapter 2 Books
Murder By The Book
Once Upon A Crime
The Book Dragon
The Poisoned Pen

Sea Hawke By Ted Bell

Sea Hawke is a wonderful throwback to the classic adventure thrillers in the vein of Clive Cussler’s works with long monologues and souped-up toys for boys that make for cool sequences at sea.

Lord Alexander Hawke plans to take a sea voyage with his son for father-son bonding. At the same time, he decides to undertake a dangerous mission to explore the recent nefarious actions of a communist alliance to threaten the western democracy. Along the journey, Hawke has to contend with blood lusting sharks, double crosses, and naval combatants. Luckily, Hawke’s own warship, retrofitted with all sorts of advanced weapons systems, evens the odds for a fun showdown against Chinese submarines.

The narrative’s style is a fun cross between the Kingsman movies and Archer tv series, taking itself lightly in the utmost formal monologues that are often interrupted in keeping with a more realistically lesser attention span for the new generation. The tense story builds up slowly but boils over with fun action sequences, including a particular favorite where Hawke stabs two sharks and drives them away. The story also shines a strong emotional focus on the relationship between Hawke and his son, presenting readers with some heartfelt moments. 

Sea Hawke definitely requires some time to warm up to with a slow burn and an unorthodox style of narration best suited for the 80’s writing style. All in all, it packs grand settings in a light story that is fitting for a fun reading mood.

---

Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.

Purchase Sea Hawke
(Note: most indie bookstores can fulfill an order as quickly as larger retailers. Please consider contacting them for your next purchase.)

Barrington Books
Chapter 2 Books
Murder By The Book
Once Upon A Crime
The Book Dragon
The Poisoned Pen

Sympathy For The Devil By Terrence McCauley

Sympathy for the Devil is a taut, brilliant, and edgy action thriller that stands tall and mighty with the biggest thrillerverse names in terms of stellar writing and distinctive characters and settings.

Terrence McCauley presents a new espionage organization dating back to World War 2, called The University which is appropriately staffed by enigmatic field personnel and analysts under the monikers of educational staff. It’s a crafty technique to operate under the radar in US while protecting its domestic as well as global interests. James Hicks is a spook and handler, aka professor, in The University whose field asset goes rogue after an undercover stint with Somali cab drivers in New York suspected of terrorist ties. With no clear explanation for the betrayal, Hicks must work his espionage tradecraft into finding answers using his bear-stopping .454 Ruger and cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence integrated into field operations to track targets and provide critical insights. However, the human-nature of unpredictability and deception calls for Hicks to utilize his training and instincts rather than simply relying on technology. The balanced blend of human psyche and modern reliance on AI makes for a clever narrative for brainy readers to appreciate and follow. 

An important aspect of writing a realistic rendition of Artificial Intelligence in modern thrillers is the AI’s capabilities. McCauley’s extensive research into the modern and near-future mechanics of AI make for a classy read that enhances your creativity without insulting your intelligence.

Kicking off strong, James Hicks is a fantastic protagonist with solid character development while preserving a healthy amount of intrigue about his real identity. With no qualms about employing lethal measures against his enemies, Hicks racks up a good amount of kill count with his Ruger, manner-of-fact demeanor, and superb dialogues that elicit an audible COOL. Rarely have I felt so strongly charmed by a protagonist so easily. 

Solid story, cool technology, secretive spy organization, and gritty action, Sympathy for the Devil is an incredible starting point into The University series and you’re compelled to start reading the second book the moment you finish this one.

---

Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.

Purchase Sympathy For The Devil
(Note: most indie bookstores can fulfill an order as quickly as larger retailers. Please consider contacting them for your next purchase.)

Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Books-A-Million

Barrington Books
Chapter 2 Books
Murder By The Book
Once Upon A Crime
The Book Dragon
The Poisoned Pen

A Time To Kill By Kronos Ananthsimha

Looking for a wild and quick action-fest read to quench your adrenaline thirst? Kronos Ananthsimha’s back with his second Slade Heller story, A Time to Kill.

The grim-but-hilarious assassin Slade Heller’s latest mission has him chasing a dangerous terrorist and a forger in London. The short length of the novella condenses the plot to leave no room for any sort of slow burn. Yet, Kronos Ananthsimha wonderfully avoids the pitfalls of all action and no character as he fleshes out his crazed protagonist’s roots to further develop him as a likable and enjoyable anti-hero with an enigmatic background. Factoring in the hilarious banter between Heller and his handler and the comedic timing of Heller’s punchlines during stressful moments, you focus on nothing but the narrative as you read through the novella.

The action is bonkers this time around as Slade Heller fights gangsters and terrorists in grizzly fashion. With smooth and realistic combat moves, Heller dispatches his targets with clinical detachment using his bare hands and a 9mm MP7 submachine gun with which he presents his own rendition of a Jackson Pollock painting.

Highly entertaining and utterly enjoyable, A Time to Kill is one of the easiest choices you’ll make when it comes to picking your next adrenaline rush ride.

---

Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.

Purchase A Time to Kill
(Note: most indie bookstores can fulfill an order as quickly as larger retailers. Please consider contacting them for your next purchase.)

Barrington Books
Chapter 2 Books
Murder By The Book
Once Upon A Crime
The Book Dragon
The Poisoned Pen

Twentymile By C. Matthew Smith

Twentymile is a striking debut set in the awesome wilderness of Great Smoky Mountains where a tenacious Special Agent with the National Park Service's Investigative Services Branch is hunting down murderers on treacherous ground with tall mountains to climb and freezing streams to cross.

Tsula Walker makes her entry as a bold and formidable protagonist who serves as an incredible inspiration to readers with her bravery and her determination to seek justice without letting raging snowstorms and hails of bullets dissuade her. The dilemmas she faces with her mother and her job create common grounds with the readers to build a rapport with her. Following a strong foundation, the rest of the journey becomes a breeze as Tsula investigates the death of a wildlife biologist in the national park. What starts off seeming like a suicide starts becoming clearer as a covered-up homicide for Tsula to solve. 

C. Matthew Smith doesn’t waste a single moment in the pacing as the mystery unravels slowly but surely, switching the POV between a few characters to not only explain the events vividly from different perspectives but also create an attachment to characters of all shades for a multilayered reading experience.

As the main setting is a national park, it would be a travesty if the most important character, Mother Nature, was not given its due diligence. Luckily, that is not the case here as C. Smith writes picturesque descriptions of the park and its furry habitants along with fascinating tidbits that smartly serve the events in the story. The beauty of the setting is its duplicity: a beautiful day in the secluded park in one chapter versus a grim fight to survive in the snow-capped mountains and hills as Tsula is chased by coyotes and hardened killers. 

Twentymile is a highly enjoyable read suited best to those who like their thrillers to simmer for awhile before erupting in a blizzard of action and unpredictability with a future promise of grander adventures.

---

Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.

Purchase Twentymile
(Note: most indie bookstores can fulfill an order as quickly as larger retailers. Please consider contacting them for your next purchase.)

Barrington Books
Chapter 2 Books
Murder By The Book
Once Upon A Crime
The Book Dragon
The Poisoned Pen

Kill For Me By Tom Wood

Kill For Me is the book I finished 2022 with and I couldn’t have picked a classier action thriller with fascinating insights into the human psyche from the point of view of a peculiar and pragmatic assassin who can’t be considered a hero in any form, and that’s where Tom Wood excels.

Victor is hired by a woman embroiled in a tug of war with her sister for control of their father’s cartel. With no end to the war in sight, one sister decides to think outside the box and hire Victor to take out her competition. Can Victor trust the sister to honor their contract?

Kill for Me continues the trend of unique thrillers penned by Tom Wood in an exotic and creative storytelling style with sharp dialogue and witty report that doesn’t just help drive the story forward but also shines a limelight on the dangerous apathetic world of killers without glorifying it. The sophisticated twists and turns elevate the excellence of the reading experience. As for Victor, he continues to be an eloquent assassin with a formidable calm that unnerves his opposition enough to give him the opening to employ his lethal craft.

Speaking of lethality, the action sequences are phenomenal. Victor’s tactical movements are precise without flair. His ability to use any and all situations to his advantage would make all action aficionados salivate. Instead of going for dragged-out conflicts, Victor dispatches his adversaries with dirty and aggressive punches, kicks, grapples, and utilizes a variety of firearms that accentuate the coolness of tactical combat written by someone scarily well-versed in the art of killing.

If there’s one thing that a reader can bet on, it’s that Tom Wood doesn’t go for clichés. His out-of-the-box thought-out stories, such as the one in Kill for Me, break the mold of conventional villains, outdated narratives and stereotypes, which is why they are perfect in cleansing your palate and reminding you while action thrillers are so awesome to begin with. Kill for Me is a beautifully grim and violent thriller that will blow your minds. I wish we would get a cinematic interpretation, but it would be quite difficult to capture the brilliance of Tom Wood’s style unless he were at the helm of the project.

---

Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.

Purchase Kill For Me
(Note: most indie bookstores can fulfill an order as quickly as larger retailers. Please consider contacting them for your next purchase.)

Barrington Books
Chapter 2 Books
Murder By The Book
Once Upon A Crime
The Book Dragon
The Poisoned Pen

Project Icarus By RD Shah

Project Icarus offers a different perspective of world history, one that sounds intriguing in conspiracy theories but deeply scary if it ever came true. 

Ethan Munroe is a smooth hostage negotiator with a violent past in the Special Forces. The thriller opens with an urgent beckoning for Munroe to rush to a crime scene where a serial killer, Icarus, has taken a young girl hostage and his only demand is to speak to Munroe. What Munroe discovers in his frightening and psychologically twisting interaction with Icarus invites him to a shadowy decades-long war between a joint clandestine organization of US, Britain, and French operatives, and a common enemy that survived its supposed extinction at the end of World War II.  

RD Shah paces the narrative swiftly and smoothly as Munroe is thrust into dangerous action-packed situations where he demonstrates his prowess in hand-to-hand combat, weapons handling, evasive driving, and flying a C-130. There is simply no good time to put the book down until it’s finished as each chapter brings along new twists that add layers of excitement as Munroe seeks the truth behind Icarus. 

The narrative is dark and grizzly, befitting the grim nature of the story. The well-established characters on both sides of the global conflict have bucketloads of potential for fleshier story arcs with room for slight improvement in the dialogues to create more natural conversations. With the epilogue ending in a game-changing revelation, RD Shah’s Project Icarus is an exciting addition to the hardcore action-thriller genre with a distinctive flavor.

---

Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.

Purchase Project Icarus
(Note: most indie bookstores can fulfill an order as quickly as larger retailers. Please consider contacting them for your next purchase.)

Barrington Books
Chapter 2 Books
Murder By The Book
Once Upon A Crime
The Book Dragon
The Poisoned Pen

A Shot To Kill By Kronos Ananthsimha

A Shot to Kill is a wildly entertaining short story by a budding author with admirable creativity. Kronos Ananthsimha introduces a different breed of anti-heroes in his protagonist, Slade Heller. Heller feels like a character straight out of a Tarantino movie; dark, violent, and bordering on the edge of sociopathic tendencies. A largely unexplored combination of traits in a leading character. Kronos’s genius lies in making the dark protagonist surprisingly appealing despite the scary blend of characteristics.

The short story shows Slade Heller being tasked with assassinating an enforcer for the Colombian drug cartel. Heller’s orders come from his handler in a PMC known as Elysium Group. As he makes a dangerous and classy entry into Florida, his mission is immediately blown and the action kicks into high-gear with the cold efficiency of a well-oiled machine. 

In a span of almost 50 pages, Slade Heller utilizes a variety of weapons to take out his targets. From the armor piercing rounds of FN Five-Seven to kitchen knives and meat cleavers, Heller creates a symphony of bloody unadulterated violence befitting a man of his disposition as a highly trained killer with little remorse. The action sequences are written with a keen focus on easy readability and visualization. 

It is best read between two full-length thrillers for a quick and effective adrenaline shot to the heart to psyche you up for the next book on your TBR list. At the same time, the cryptic hints about Heller’s past coupled with the promise of bigger action in follow-up stories will undoubtedly whet your appetite to read more of this enthralling new enigmatic assassin. 

---

Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.

Purchase A Shot To Kill
(Note: most indie bookstores can fulfill an order as quickly as larger retailers. Please consider contacting them for your next purchase.)

Barrington Books
Chapter 2 Books
Murder By The Book
Once Upon A Crime
The Book Dragon
The Poisoned Pen

Chain Of Command By Marc Cameron

Chain of Command has the distinctive aura of a classic Tom Clancy thriller with a timely story wrapped in captivating multilayered subplots deftly woven to unravel in a nail-biting ending. 

President Jack Ryan faces his most personal threat in the recent years in the form of foreign pharmaceutical giants who, threatened by President Ryan’s agenda to focus on more localized pharmaceutical companies, hatch an audacious scheme to throw a big wrench in the President’s actions by contracting a merciless group of mercenaries to kidnap the First Lady.

Marc Cameron develops the story in smooth and swift fashion, building a binding rapport with the reader through vivid renditions of fan-favorite as well as novel characters sporting realistic and modern agendas. The fresh narrative of pitting a powerful nation against wealthy private citizens reaching out from behind shadows via cutouts is scarily in-keeping with recent real-life examples of private organizations amassing the powers of nations. With a greater focus on President Jack Ryan handling crisis after crisis in the Oval Office, readers are treated to insightfully commanding peeks at the sheer chaos that comes with the job of running a country with strongly divisive policies.

Of course, no Jack Ryan thriller would be complete without authentically crafted action sequences. Marc Cameron is no stranger to writing fast-paced shootouts, a fact to which the gritty combat sequences in the story coupled with captivating tidbits about weaponry and tactics will testify. A cinematic Texas shootout involving a SWAT operative riding a Harley Davidson into the heart of an active shooter situation is particularly delightful and goes a long way to establish a brand-new recruit for The Campus.

Chain of Command is worthy of Tom Clancy’s legacy as a grand reading experience brimming with creativity and authenticity. Marc Cameron has outdone himself with this one!

---

Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.

Purchase Chain Of Command
(Note: most indie bookstores can fulfill an order as quickly as larger retailers. Please consider contacting them for your next purchase.)

Barrington Books
Chapter 2 Books
Murder By The Book
Once Upon A Crime
The Book Dragon
The Poisoned Pen

The Body Man By Eric P. Bishop

The Body Man is an excellent debut that feels like a throwback to the classic political thrillers but with relatable modern day setting and unique prospect of an individual who keeps the secrets of the President of The United States and protects the spirit of the White House in a somewhat unorthodox but quite necessary manner in this era of information espionage. 

The story kicks off with the abduction of The Body Man, an event that puts into motion an FBI investigation that leads Agents Eli Payne And Katherine Stone deep into a conspiracy that reveals an ugly truth about the administration with a shocking reveal. The political intrigue was developed with an exciting aura of intrigue and mystique that only revealed itself fully towards the end.  With multiple storylines tying in, involving secret assassinations and femme fatales, there is no certainty about who can be trusted. The brilliance of the author is depicted in how he links the perspectives of different characters towards one major goal of telling the exciting race-against-time narrative in a captivating manner from all sides to engage the readers in an immersive experience.

I loved the characters, particularly FBI agents Eli and Katherine. They formed a fun bond together with witty remarks and strong camaraderie that developed gradually over the course of the book. All characters are written with due diligence towards seeming grounded and realistic in today’s modern era and their interactions felt natural and fitting.

The action is crisp and precise, providing necessary technical details to visualize the shootouts in close quarters. From the brutal hand-to-hand combat to gritty shootouts, the action is well executed and displayed for readers to easily visualize.

With all being said, The Body Man is a spectacular political thriller with multiple intriguing subplots to build the mystique for a huge bang! A fan-favorite kickoff to an exciting new series!   

---

Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.

Purchase The Body Man
(Note: most indie bookstores can fulfill an order as quickly as larger retailers. Please consider contacting them for your next purchase.)

Barrington Books
Chapter 2 Books
Murder By The Book
Once Upon A Crime
The Book Dragon
The Poisoned Pen

Game On By Janet Evanovich

Stephanie Plum may not be the most badass character in the Thrillerverse, but she is a lot of fun to read about and offers bucket loads of laughter and goofiness to help you decompress after a dark story. Game On was an experimental read of sorts for me as I dove into a lighter side of thrillers with romance and quips.

Stephanie Plum is a bounty hunter whose latest bounty puts her in the crosshairs of a megalomaniac hacker who will go to dangerous lengths to kill a group of geeks who got a peek at his nefarious agenda to cause all sorts of havoc. The case brings her together with Diesel, a former flame and international bounty hunter. What starts off as a competition for Plum soon turns more violent and sinister in nature as she must work with Diesel irrespective of the bounty to catch the hacker before her loved ones pay the ultimate price. 

Janet Evanovich’s witty writing results in a lot of hilarious banter between characters, particularly any and all interactions with Plum’s grandmother, Grandma. The first-person POV helps keep a singular focus on Stephanie, allowing readers to gel with her emotions and thoughts for the journey and keeping things interesting even in the most banal of situations like family dinners. As an untrained bounty hunter, Plum is not quick to action and more prone to reaction, making her relatable as an ordinary human being with only her determination and some great friends to keep her going. From start to finish, there is no dull moment as you solve the case with Stephanie and get involved in crazy shenanigans that will leave you chuckling if not laughing out loud.

If you feel like kicking back with a blast of hilarious entertainment, a few shootouts, and a dangerous grandma, Game On will not disappoint.

---

Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.

Purchase Game On
(Note: most indie bookstores can fulfill an order as quickly as larger retailers. Please consider contacting them for your next purchase.)

Barrington Books
Chapter 2 Books
Murder By The Book
Once Upon A Crime
The Book Dragon
The Poisoned Pen

The Last Protector By Simon Gervais

The Last Protector speaks volumes for Simon Gervais’s skillful approach to writing a realistic protagonist with a balanced appetite for action and emotions in a multi-layered storyline. 

Clayton White is a Secret Service Agent who is tasked with protecting the daughter of the Vice President elect with whom he is in a secret relationship. When an attempt is made on her life, the Vice President elect comes to Clayton with a Carte Blanche to take out the culprits. Unknown to White, he is being manipulated to cover up a dirty secret that will have devastating consequences for various intelligence communities around the world, and particularly the Vice President elect himself. 

The narrative unravels quickly but smoothly without rushing the impactful revelations. While the conspiracy is not kept under wraps from the readers, it serves to present a transformative journey for Clayton White whose world turns upside down with emotionally charged twists and turns. The conspiracy-laden fast-paced narrative is augmented by adrenaline-pumping action sequences of stellar quality. Simon Gervais ensures to make Clayton White formidable but not invincible, creating tense shootouts and fisticuffs in which the outcomes are not automatically awarded to White.

With a refreshingly ingenious modern-day storyline, intriguingly believable characters, and a relentless pace, Simon Gervais has struck gold with a brand-new series that has immense potential to be explored. The ending subtly hints at a deeper dive into the conspiracy in the next Clayton White thriller, promising big plans for this franchise.

---

Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.

Purchase The Last Protector
(Note: most indie bookstores can fulfill an order as quickly as larger retailers. Please consider contacting them for your next purchase.)

Barrington Books
Chapter 2 Books
Murder By The Book
Once Upon A Crime
The Book Dragon
The Poisoned Pen

Her Name Is Knight By Yasmin Angoe

Her Name is Knight packs its strongest punch in unflinching descriptions of brutality and horror inflicted upon innocent souls, matched only by the swift vengeance of the hardened survivors. This is not a traditional espionage story. Yasmin Angoe’s writing emphasizes the emotional core of the protagonist who goes through unspeakable terror and comes out with a mission as an operative of a clandestine agency to punish the wicked and present a united front for all Africans.  When faces from her past come back to haunt her, Nena, codenamed Echo, has to utilize her cutthroat training in the dark arts of mortal combat to confront her demons and put an end to them.

The supercharged narrative wonderfully weaves between past and present timelines to give readers an impactful insight into Nena’s beautiful character development in time with the twisty unfolding events of present day. The action is crisp and gritty with fast paced shootouts and hand-to-hand combat sequences.  However, with a powerful emotional driving force behind the story, Nena’s interactions with her family and loved ones could have flowed more smoothly and gradually to hit the perfect vibe for such a dark story. 

Exhibiting promising potential for future stories, Yasmin Angoe marks her debut with one of the darkest thrillers to date with a winning combination of violent action and gut-wrenching emotions. It is definitely not for the faint of heart when it comes to reading and imagining the gruesome sexual abuse Nena goes through.

---

Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.

Purchase Her Name Is Knight
(Note: most indie bookstores can fulfill an order as quickly as larger retailers. Please consider contacting them for your next purchase.)

Barrington Books
Chapter 2 Books
Murder By The Book
Once Upon A Crime
The Book Dragon
The Poisoned Pen

Better Off Dead By Lee Child And Andrew Child

Better Off Dead is a different breed of Jack Reacher stories with the open-reins setting of a small deserted town bordering Mexico but a much larger-than-expected scale plot that involves a potential attack on the FBI during Veteran’s Day. I went into the thriller expecting a more crime-oriented narrative but the derivation is an understandable change of pace to keep the stories fresh in a long running series.

Reacher is hopping from town to town where he comes across a woman apparently stuck in a crashed Jeep. On closer inspection, he finds out the woman is actually waiting to ambush a few unsavory characters who have information on where her brother is being held. When Reacher realizes the depth of the matter, he steps in to help the woman, although halfheartedly at first because the evidence leads to an enigmatic business owner in a sleepy town whose employees are more threatened by him than by Reacher, putting the latter in a new pickle where his considerable size and threats seem to fall short of getting the job done. With a desperation unlike any before, Reacher must identify the big baddie and stop him by unraveling a string of shocking twists and turns using his wits and deductive thinking before time runs out for him and many other innocents.

The action sequences are typical Reacher-styled with an almost slow-motion perception of the hand-to-hand combat sequences that expertly display Reacher’s prowess. Some moves seem a bit unorthodox but make sense once we take Reacher’s huge physique into consideration. The storyline is a unique take on terror attacks but feels a little out of place in a Jack Reacher thriller where more grounded plots work better for a drifter protagonist who’s essentially a dinosaur in today’s technology driven world. The advantage of Reacher’s old school approach is wonderfully capitalized upon by the authors to explain complex matters such as transponders used in explosive materials in layman’s terms to cater to all audiences irrespective of their depth of knowledge on the matter. 

Better Off Dead is an adrenaline-pumping read from the very first chapter as Reacher goes to town on the bad guys, augmented by a unique storyline and the trademark badassery of Jack Reacher. Apart from the story dragging a bit and a somewhat anticlimactic resolution, it’s a fun read that offers tons of entertainment for long term fans of Jack Reacher.

---

Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.

Purchase Better Off Dead
(Note: most indie bookstores can fulfill an order as quickly as larger retailers. Please consider contacting them for your next purchase.)

Barrington Books
Chapter 2 Books
Murder By The Book
Once Upon A Crime
The Book Dragon
The Poisoned Pen

Security Day By Matt Cricchio

Matt Cricchio’s factual account, Security Day, goes behind enemy lines in an unconventional but necessary manner that gives essential insights into the Afghan conflict from a domestic and thoughtful perspective. 

Set in Uruzgan Province, the book focuses on a weekly convoy of shipments protected by vicious warlord General Mir Hamza Khan. When he gets a whiff of America’s plan for withdrawing, he begins to play a dangerous game that ensnarls him, a rookie intelligence agent, and an Afghan man desperate to provide for his family. The result is a devastatingly intense chain of events with cutthroat and devious espionage that ratchets up the nail-biting quite a few notches.

What truly separates Matt Cricchio’s debut from most other espionage thrillers is the deep-rooted authenticity of the subject matter, from the streets of the Afghan province to the intricate subtleties of the regional dialect in spoken communication. We see a ground-level view of the conflicts from varying and all-encompassing perspectives that lend unique contributions to the grand scheme of the narrative.

The grounded espionage-laden landscape doesn’t leave a lot of room for over-the-top action. Instead, the thrills spawn from the slow-burn pace of the story, always accompanied by a sense of foreboding danger and catastrophe that keeps you reading late in the night because you can’t help not knowing what will happen next. Each character and situation are poised with a keen awareness of existence in the real world, elevating the long-lasting impact of the narrative.

Security Day is a mesmerizing and intriguing account of the Afghanistan-US conflict from a boots-on-the-ground outlook covering both sides of the proverbial coin in a thoughtful and respectful modus operandi. This debut is packed with clear indicators of the author’s brilliant potential to offer the thrillerverse more of his authentic and gritty stories that put premium emphasis on the characters, a thing of rarity in contemporary thrillers.

---

Follow Kashif on Twitter or contact him via the site.

Purchase Security Day
(Note: most indie bookstores can fulfill an order as quickly as larger retailers. Please consider contacting them for your next purchase.)

Barrington Books
Chapter 2 Books
Murder By The Book
Once Upon A Crime
The Book Dragon
The Poisoned Pen