Canned Hunt: A Nick Tanner Crime Thriller by Kerry K Cox – #BookReview – #crimethrillers

Canned Hunt by Kerry K Cox

Rosepoint Publishing: Five Stars

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent Nick Tanner goes undercover to follow up on another agent’s investigation—one that may have led to her murder. From the stark canyons and soaring rock walls of Book Cliffs to the gritty back streets of Las Vegas; from the swift-flowing Green River rapids to a pastoral Utah town hiding violent secrets, Tanner is drawn into a seething vortex of a wildlife trafficking family, a crooked sheriff, a white nationalist church, and a killer with the perfect alibi.
And one of them has Tanner in their crosshairs.

His Review:

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is charged with the control of hunting and the protection of our country’s wildlife. One of their own has been found dead near the Book Cliffs in southern Utah. Although the area looks desolate, it is teeming with wildlife including deer, elk, bears, mountain lions, and bobcats.

Hunters gravitate toward the area for the hunting trophies achieved for those who are tenacious enough to hunt the area. A lucrative business flourishes with the unscrupulous charging $10,000 to $15,000 per hunt for big game. The licensed operators contribute to local politics and other endeavors.

Assisting the hunters that may no longer enjoy perfect health are activities onerous to most hunters, but wounding an animal in the area and then releasing it from a cage is not uncommon. The wounded animal will seek shade and a place to heal from the wound. The “hunter” then is directed to hunt in that particular area and finding the wounded animal is able to harvest the specimen.

The local sheriff, Vernon Rice, is complicit in the endeavor. He is paid a handsome fee to look the other way. His brother has a church that thinks that the federal government has no business controlling and policing local business such as hunting. Federal agents are not well received in the area.

This is a well-written and researched book. The blind bobcat, Ray Charles, makes for a charismatic support character and Nick Tanner as the main character is a strong, passionate, and caring law enforcement officer. The independent attitude and dislike of the federal government is well displayed. Graft and independent spirit are portrayed in a very believable story fabric. I recommend you read and enjoy this fast-paced fictionalized exposé. 5 stars – CE Williams

Many thanks to the author for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. I enjoyed it as much as the first in the series, Money Bear.

Book Details:

Genre: Crime Thrillers
Publisher: Level Best Books
ASIN: B09P4G4WXH
Print Length: 362 pages
Publication Date: March 14, 2022
Source: Publisher and NetGalley
Title Links: Canned Hunt [Amazon]
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: [Kerry K Cox] When I was a kid, I didn’t want to be a policeman, or fireman, or astronaut, or major league third baseman. I wanted to be a forest ranger.

Okay, also a major league third baseman. Y’know, as a summer job.

But it turned out my inability to comprehend biochem made a career in wildlife management as realistic as my chances of starting for the Dodgers.

So, after four years at Oregon State University I declared myself graduated, and returned home to Southern California. There I taught swimming, karate, and pre-school while I sold articles to various magazines, wrote children’s shows for The Disney Channel, and eventually became a full-time writer.

And because one of my childhood dreams lives on, I now write novels focused on the dark underworld of wildlife trafficking, and work with various wildlife, marine mammal, and feral cat/kitten groups as a rescue volunteer along California’s Central Coast.

I’m still waiting on that call from the Dodgers.

I live by the ocean in Cambria, California with my wife and a clowder of cats.

Enjoy Your Sunday

The Line (Helen Scott Royal Military Police Thrillers Book 2) by Rachel Lynch – #BookReview – #women’sdetectivefiction

The Line by Rachel Lynch

“An unputdownable crime thriller”

Book Blurb:

The truth can have deadly consequences…

On a sunny morning, when the Mediterranean is dead calm, Captain Paul Thomas embarks on a dive to the wreck of the Zenobia, off the coast of Larnaca, Cyprus. Within hours, he has taken his final, gasping breath in an accident below the surface. A new Royal Military Police liaison is required to pick up on his work, and Major Helen Scott gets the assignment.

It turns out Paul Thomas had rattled cages during his current case – four serving soldiers are in custody accused of the leaking of state intelligence. If proven, the scandal would rock the foundation of the armed forces. Once on Cyprus, it becomes clear that the island relies on a delicate balance of old-school glad-handing and turning a blind eye, and anyone who threatens to upset the equilibrium will find themselves in the line of fire…

An action-packed crime thriller, perfect for fans of Angela Marsons and Lee Child.

His Review:

Four corporals are in the brig for the death of a naval officer who drowned off the coast of Cyprus. A seasoned and well-trained diver should not have drowned at 60 meters exploring a wreck. Major Helen Scott RMP is sent to investigate the incident.

Helen does not believe such an accident would have occurred with a trained diver. Her investigation reveals some very strange and frightening facts about this quiet Mediterranean island. How could the officer have drowned when being accompanied by three other seasoned divers? Why was he not able to get back to the surface by following his dive line back to the opening in the ship being investigated?

Major Helen Scott is an extremely strong character and an excellent effective member of the navy. This book has many twists and well-developed characters guaranteed to keep you turning pages. Enjoy! 4.5 stars – CE Williams

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Women’s Detective Fiction, International Mystery & Crime
Publisher: Canelo Crime
ASIN: B0B1TT59PG
Print Length: 328 pages
Publication Date: July 28, 2022
Source: Publisher and NetGalley
Title Link: The Line [Amazon]
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: [Goodreads] Rachel Lynch grew up in Cumbria and the lakes and fells are never far away from her. London pulled her away to teach History and marry an Army Officer, whom she followed around the globe for thirteen years.

A change of career after children led to personal training and sports therapy, but writing was always the overwhelming force driving the future. The human capacity for compassion as well as its descent into the brutal and murky world of crime are fundamental to her work.

Have a Nice Weekend!

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub – #Audiobook Review – #timetravel

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub

Best Books of 2022 So Far

Book Blurb:

With her celebrated humor, insight, and heart, beloved New York Times bestseller Emma Straub offers her own twist on traditional time travel tropes, and a different kind of love story.

On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice’s life isn’t terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn’t exactly the one she expected. She’s happy with her apartment, her romantic status, her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But her father is ailing, and it feels to her as if something is missing. When she wakes up the next morning she finds herself back in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday. But it isn’t just her adolescent body that shocks her, or seeing her high school crush, it’s her dad: the vital, charming, 40-something version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and his, some past events take on new meaning. Is there anything that she would change if she could?

My Review:

Okay, I’m definitely not the right demographic for this book. Besides being a much older generation, I couldn’t identify with the intensity of the retrospection with her father, not having one myself that I noticed his passing. And, sorry, I’m not a monster city fan.

As it’s been out now for several months and it’s been a fav, accruing a lot of notice and positive reviews, everyone knows it’s about a time-traveling woman who leaves a forty-year-old body having over-partied into oblivion to discover herself again at sixteen. UGH! Those teen years—no thank you. However, I am a fan of the time traveler genre. In this case, back and forth to the same time, 1996, and the relationship with her single-parent father.

Having said the above, you’ll possibly understand why I thought the first part of the book was relatively slow and difficult for me to engage as it set up the characters, the current atmosphere, and the stressful situation with her dying father.

I enjoyed her first travel experience and again when she figured out how to move freely between the times. I found the pace, and my interest, accelerated somewhat in the middle of the book when she began to explore the question of whether or not there was any way to change any outcomes. More importantly, would she?

Lots of retrospective discussions, reliving the grand old 1990s, heavy nostalgic memories. Gees, it’s almost depressing, interesting heavy-handed author writing style prose but the conclusion came well-plotted and satisfying.

So many time travel novels end in the trope of “do-overs.” I also wrote about that back in 2015. The fork in the road. What if…I’d gone left instead of right. Isn’t this something all of us have mused over? The novel charges the reader to look at what we have now—enjoy it or make the changes–particularly for those whom we love.

I received a complimentary review copy of this audiobook from the publisher and NetGalley. These are my honest thoughts.

Book Details:

Genre: Time Travel Science Fiction, Time Travel Fiction, Family Life Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Audio
ASIN: B09HST51ZG
Listening Length: 8 hrs 31 mins
Narrator: Marin Ireland
Publication Date: May 17, 2022
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: This Time Tomorrow [Amazon]
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

Rosepoint Publishing: Three point Five Stars

The Author: Emma Straub is the New York Times-bestselling author of five novels—This Time Tomorrow, All Adults Here, The Vacationers, Modern Lovers, Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures—and the short story collection Other People We Married. Her books have been published in more than 20 languages, and All Adults Here is currently in development as a television series. She and her husband own Books Are Magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York.

book shelves

Deadly Spirits by Mary Miley – #BookReview – #TuesdayBookBlog

Deadly Spirits by Mary Miley

(A Mystic’s Accomplice mystery Book 3)

Book Blurb:

Medium’s assistant – and reluctant sleuth – Maddie Pastore is shocked when her long-lost sister is accused of murder, in this twisty, atmospheric mystery set in 1920s Chicago.

Summer, 1924. Young widow Maddie Pastore has been working for fraudulent spiritual medium Madame Carlotta for nearly a year – if ‘work’ you could call it. Investigating Carlotta’s clients, and attending seances as her shill, keeps Maddie and her young son Tommy fed and clothed, and she’s grown to love the kind, well-meaning spiritualist like family.

Still, Maddie – estranged from her abusive parents for over a decade – can’t help but wonder what fates befell her brothers and sisters. So when she lucks into two free tickets to a glamorous Chicago speakeasy and recognizes the star performer as her pretty little sister Sophie, she’s beyond delighted.

But before Maddie can meet with Sophie again, the telephone rings. It’s Sophie’s husband, calling in a panic to tell her that his wife is locked in the Cook County jail, charged with first-degree murder . . .

Enter a dark and deadly world of seances and speakeasies, populated by fake mediums, sultry singers and dangerous mobsters! An ideal pick for readers who enjoy glitzy Jazz Age mysteries with feisty female sleuths.

My Review:

What a pleasant surprise this turned out to be! I was sucked in because of the blurb and the cover and thought it would be one I’d like. And it is! It’s the wild and wooly early 1920s, a decade that can provide endless stories.

Maddie Pastore is the MC, a young widow working for spiritual medium Madame Carlotta for bed and board. Handy that Madam Carlotta loves Maddie’s fourteen-month-old son. She attends Madame Carlotta’s séances as a shill, but her real purpose is to research upcoming clients so she can feed info to Freddie who helps with “enhancements” to solidify the experience.

Maddie scores free tickets to a Chicago speakeasy and discovers the star performer is her own baby sister from a large abusive family where siblings scattered like the wind as soon as they could. But before she and Sophie really have a reunion and catch up, she is notified by Sophie’s husband that she’s in Cook County jail charged with first-degree murder.

You can’t scratch much of the surface of Chicago’s history without confronting the mobsters who populated the back streets and unfortunately Maddie has a bit of experience with that as it was what got her husband killed.

So here’s what I liked about the story: There’s history here, real history, lots of well-known names, the Chicago mystic, and iconic architecture. Lots of fascinating tidbits you might not have known about the area and the time. (Reversing the flow of the Chicago River, for heaven’s sake! Yeah, I’m still new to the area.)

In between working on finding a way out of jail for the sister she’s sure is innocent, she is given the names of new clients to investigate and these are interesting side stories uniquely fabricated into the narrative seamlessly. Her method of investigation is remarkable, not unlike a person searching ancestry info—sources readily (or not so) available to scour.

I like the characters, both the main characters and the support characters, most well fleshed, and the female detective (apparently drawn from history) a hoot, but I thought the baby might have been a little good to be true.

I had just a little problem with the climax (wondering about survivability) and the conclusion that pushed boundaries a bit. Otherwise, although this is the third in the series (and sorry now I missed the first two!), it can easily be read as a standalone. It’s gripping, evenly fast-paced, and has me ready to read the next.

I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the author and publisher through @NetGalley that in no way influenced this review. These are my honest thoughts.

Rosepoint Rating: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Historical Mysteries, Amateur Sleuth Mysteries, Historical Mystery
Publisher: Severn House
ASIN: B09XGRP2TK
Print Length: 259 pages
Publication Date: September 6, 2022
Source: Publisher and NetGalley

Title Link(s):

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

The Author: [Mary Miley] I’m an Army brat who has lived in Virginia most of my adult life. I received my BA and MA in history from the College of William and Mary and taught American history and museum studies at Virginia Commonwealth University for thirteen years. I am the author of 200 magazine articles, most on history, travel, and business topics, and a dozen nonfiction books. The Impersonator (2013) was my first foray into fiction–and it won the national Mystery Writers of America award for Best First Crime Novel! Three others in the series followed: Silent Murders (2014), Renting Silence (2016), and Murder in Disguise (2017). More recently, my new Roaring Twenties series debuted in the U.S. in 2021. The Mystic’s Accomplice is set in Chicago and features violent gangsters, fraudulent Spiritualists, and a single mom with a new baby. Its sequel, Spirits and Smoke, was released early in 2022 and the third, Deadly Spirits, is scheduled for a fall debut. For me, the Roaring Twenties is the America’s most fascinating decade and the perfect setting for both my mystery series.

When I’m not writing or plotting, I spend a good deal of time at Valley Road Vineyards in Afton, VA, a winery that my husband and I own with 4 other couples. Last year we planted another 6 1/2 acres of vines and introduced several new wines–my favorite is the viognier. Already this year I’ve spent 3 days on the bottling assembly line, doing strenuous intellectual work like loading full bottles into cases and standing on a ladder to feed corks into the hopper. Visit us at Valley Road there in person or at http://www.valleyroadwines.com.
http://www.marymileytheobald.com
http://www.pinterest.com/mmtheobald/the-mystics-accomplice

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Growing Wild in the Shade by Jean Grainger – #BookReview – Women’s Detective Fiction – #happyreleaseday

Growing Wild in the Shade by Jean Grainger

A Mags Munroe Story (The Mags Munroe Series Book 2)

Book Blurb:

If you want to disappear, start again, make a new life, a small Irish village is probably not the wisest place to go, since anonymity is not something we do well here.

The arrival of someone new is always a cause for twitching curtains and whispered conversations.

But here, like everywhere, people have their secrets, and as the local sergeant I’m expected to have my eyes peeled for anything unusual.

And I do.
Usually.
Until I don’t, and the consequences are potentially fatal.

My Review:

Once past St. Patrick’s Day, if you need an “Irish fix” there is none better than picking up a Jean Grainger book. The author has that understated ability for placing you in the center of the Irish village set in the book you are reading—in this instance—Ballycarrick, Ireland.

It’s a book filled with characters, the MC being Mags Munroe, a newly promoted Sargeant in the local Garda. She has taken on the duty of coaching her community, settle conflicts, prejudices, and little offenses. She is married to Kieran, an independent roofer. Also prominent is Mags mother and Delia, newly minted Garda and also a Traveller, which is the main focus of this narrative.

As always, however, there are several under-plot threads one being her mother’s new love life and Mags own grapple with menopause. Her husband is living in fear of her being hurt again, last time seriously and they must come to terms with that aspect of her job.

It sounds like the little town of Ballycarrick is torn right down the middle regarding moving the Travellers from an area for which they’ve long been occupants without benefit of ownership. There are those who would move them to the area of another family of Travellers who are not so carefully or cleanly law-abiding. The Travellers are looked down on in any case and this provides an opportunity for proselytizing. Some good arguments here that sound as if they’d be the same for many of similar situations around the globe.

“She is only the monkey; Joanna Burke is the organ grinder.”

It is the everyday life though that the author manages to wheedle out of the pages, the little struggles, triumphs, and solutions brought about through thoughtful consensus. It is life in every village, every city—human life with bits of candor and clarity–and that iconic Irish sense of humor.

I received an advance copy of this book from the author that in no way influenced this review. These are my unbiased thoughts.

Rosepoint Rating: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Women’s Detective Fiction, Women’s Crime Fiction, Women’s Literary Fiction
ISBN: ‎1914958012
ASIN: B09VCLSQX6
Print Length: 246 pages
Publication Date: Happy release! July 18, 2022
Source: Author request

Title Link(s):

Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Jean Grainger - author — Jean Grainger – author

The Author: USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR

SELECTED BY BOOKBUB READERS IN TOP 19 OF HISTORICAL FICTION BOOKS.

WINNER OF THE 2016 AUTHOR’S CIRCLE HISTORICAL NOVEL OF EXCELLENCE

Hello and thanks for taking time out to check out my page. If you’re wondering what you’re getting with my books then think of the late great Maeve Binchy but sometimes with a historical twist. I was born in Cork, Ireland in 1971 and I come from a large family of storytellers, so much so that we had to have ‘The Talking Spoon’, only the person holding the spoon could talk!

I have worked as a history lecturer at University, a teacher of English, History and Drama in secondary school, a playwright, and a tour guide of my beloved Ireland. I am married to the lovely Diarmuid and we have four children. We live in a 200 year old stone cottage in Mid-Cork with my family and the world’s smallest dogs, called Scrappy and Scoobi..

My experiences leading groups, mainly from the United States, led me to write my first novel, ‘The Tour’. My observances of the often funny, sometimes sad but always interesting events on tours fascinated me. People really did confide the most extraordinary things, the safety of strangers I suppose. It’s a fictional story set on a tour bus but many of the characters are based on people I met over the years.

[truncated]

My current series, The Queenstown Series, centres on twelve year old Harp Devereaux and her mother Rose and the first book opens on the day Titanic sails from Queenstown, Co Cork on her last fateful journey. It is a bestselling series and people really seem to connect to the precocious Harp and her hard-working mother as they battle to survive in a society where conforming and playing by the rules was paramount. It is so far a three book series, The West’s Awake, and The Harp and the Rose being the next two books but I’m currently writing book four.

Many of the people who have reviewed my books have said that you get to know the characters and really become attached to them, that’s wonderful for me to hear because that’s how I feel about them too. I grew up on Maeve Binchy and Deirdre Purcell and I aspired to being like them. If you buy one of my books I’m very grateful and I really hope you enjoy it. If you do, or even if you don’t, please take the time to post a review. Writing is a source of constant contentment to me and I am so fortunate to have the time and the inclination to do it, but to read a review written by a reader really does make my day.

Cold Justice by Nolon King and David W Wright – #BookReview – #pulpthrillers

Cold Justice by Nolon King and David W Wright

Book Blurb:

A collection of corrupt men inside the justice system ruined his cousin Frank’s life, and now Stan Manning is going to make them pay. Instead of starting at the bottom, he enlists the help of his old friend and special ops army veteran, Moses White.

Frank Grimm left behind a notebook with a list of interesting names. At the top was Senator Royse Mickelson.

Stan assembles a small crew to build evidence against the Senator to bring him to justice, but when the senator dies in a terrible — and suspicious — car accident on the way to the police station after his public arrest, Stan must once again go into hiding.

His Review:

Hiding in a closet and listening to the footsteps of the killers coming for you is a tough way to start a day. Stan was inside a closet trying to make himself invisible but with little success. He calculates the correct angles to disable them and prepares for the worst. The footsteps get closer.

Four killers ought to be better prepared to complete their mission. Success is most often contained in the minutia and details. They learned too late that their prey was also armed as portions of a closet door disintegrated in a loud debris storm. Two killers down and two calling from below, “was the job done?”

These authors collaborate brilliantly in developing frightening snippets of lives saved and lives wasted. Reading this book, I wondered if people intent on killing someone could be so obtuse. A hunter needs to consider the survival instincts of the prey they are after. Overconfidence causes some of the best-hired guns to make life-ending mistakes.

The book is well written and leaves no time for recollection. The chapters are fast and the results impressive. I applaud the collaboration of these two writers. 4.5 stars – CE Williams

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Pulp Thrillers, Crime Thrillers, Suspense
Publisher: Sterling & Stone
ASIN: B0B146QP4Q
Print Length: 215 pages
Publication Date: June 20, 2022
Source: Publisher and NetGalley
Title Links: Cold Justice [Amazon]
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Authors:

Nolon King writes psychological thrillers designed to have you on the edge of your seat. His stories are dark, twisty, and often decidedly close to home.

When not writing you will find Nolon drinking black coffee and observing humans in their natural habitats.

↔↔↔↔↔↔

David Wright is a suspense thriller writer and co-author of the bestselling #1 horror and #1 sci-fi series, “Yesterday’s Gone.”

…With Nolon King, he is the co-author of the standalone suspense thriller “12” and the vigilante thriller series “No Justice.”

…He is the author of the non-fiction book, “Into the Darkness” which looks at how books and comics provided an escape from his youth and now he writes to offer that same escape to readers.

He is also one third of The Story Studio Podcast with authors Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant.

He currently lives on the east coast with his wife, his young son, and the world’s most poopingest cat.

When he’s not writing books, David can be found writing about the things he enjoys (TV shows, movies, books, video games, and going off on the occasional rant) at http://DavidwWright.com.

Have a Nice Weekend!

The Last Saxon King: A Jump in Time Novel (Book 1) by Andrew Varga – #BookReview – #historicalfiction

The Last Saxon King by Andrew Varga

Book Blurb:

Life is progressing normally for sixteen-year-old Dan Renfrew when he accidentally transports himself to England in the year 1066. He soon realizes that he’s trapped there, and that’s not his only astonishing discovery. Dan learns that he’s descended from a long line of time jumpers—secret heroes who travel to the past and resolve glitches in the time stream that threaten to alter subsequent history. The only way Dan can return home is to set history back on its proper course in the Anglo-Saxon age. This is no easy task. A Viking horde is ravaging England in the north while a Norman army threatens to invade from the south. In between and desperately struggling to hold on to his throne is Harold Godwinson, the newly-crowned English king. Dan is fighting to ensure that events play out correctly when he finds himself plunged into an even more lethal conflict. To save history, Dan must battle a band of malevolent time jumpers whose lust for wealth and power threatens the entire future of the world.

His Review:

Daniel’s father is being attacked by an assassin in their living room. A six-inch rod with a forgotten set of symbols is thrown to him by his father. He is given a phrase to say and is thrust back into the time of the Battle of Hastings. His adventure begins with Sunngifu who first meets him, telling him how inept and uneducated he is. His day goes down from there!

The rod seems to be a translation device and having it placed next to his skin allows him to talk to the people in the village. At 16 years of age, Dan is expected to join the local authority and fight for the kingdom. He has fallen into a time of great conflict. There is no choice; when the king or lord commands you, you must join and fight.

The class system is well described in this narrative as are the problems Daniel faces. The leaders in this part of the world are either royalty or the most-wealthy individuals. Peasants are required to fight for the royal and will be killed gruesomely if they do not comply but Daniel manages to become a companion to Edward and the future king of England.

The description of society as well as the interactions with the various characters describe a very colorful existence. Conscripted into the service of the overlord being mandatory, the conscripts must supply their own weapons. A farmer is not given a weapon but rather brings a pitchfork or hoe or some other farm implement.

Additional weapons are prizes of battle such as swords, lances, and poleaxes. A running count of the casualties inflicted on the other side is bragged about by the victors.

This author has developed a very fine example of life in the middle-ages and the dangers faced. Modern man is not equipped for these dangers. Can Daniel save himself long enough to return to his own time? Or, does he want to? 4 stars – CE Williams

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a review copy and the opportunity to read this book.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Historical Fiction, #timetravel, YA Fiction
Publisher: Imbrifex Books
ISBN-10: ‎ 1945501820
ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1945501821
ASIN: B0B1CBGDRV
Print Length: 316 pages
Publication Date: March 7, 2023
Source: Publisher and NetGalley
Title Link: The Last Saxon King [Amazon]
Barnes & Noble

Andrew Varga - author — Andrew Varga – author

The Author: I am a YA historical fiction author who takes great pains to ensure historical accuracy in my books, while still ensuring that I tell a great story. Although I enjoy reading and writing about all history, I have a particular fondness for European history from Greco-Roman times until the crusades.

I hope you enjoy my stories.

Have a great Sunday!

Tom Clancy Zero Hour (A Jack Ryan Jr Novel Book 9 by Don Bentley – #BookReview – #warfiction

Tom Clancy Zero Hour by Don Bentley

Rosepoint Publishing: Five Stars

in Military Thrillers

Book Blurb:

Jack Ryan, Jr. is the one man who can prevent a second Korean War in the latest thrilling entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling series.

When the leader of North Korea is catastrophically injured, his incapacitation inadvertently triggers a “dead-man’s switch,” activating an army of sleeper agents in South Korea and precipitating a struggle for succession.

Jack Ryan, Jr. is in Seoul to interview a potential addition to the Campus. But his benign trip takes a deadly turn when a wave of violence perpetrated by North Korean operatives grips South Korea’s capital. A mysterious voice from North Korea offers Jack a way to stop the peninsula’s rush to war, but her price may be more than he can afford to pay.

His Review:

North Korea has a cadre of renegade operatives working to overthrow the South Korean regime. Explosions are felt in Seoul as large crowds begin to crowd the capital. Escape is very difficult with the people frantically searching for places of safety. Meanwhile, the North Korean insurgents continue to plant many more bombs.

The ”Supreme Leader” has been missing for a number of days and the suspicion of a successful coup is rampant. The renegades are intent on initiating a war between the South and American advisors. They gather a detachment of soldiers intent on exacerbating the chaos.

A leading medical advisor to the “Supreme Leader” has him placed in a safe bunker near the border between the North and the South. The bunker is also a top-secret research facility for developing a new and very deadly chemical weapon to destroy the South Korean army and thousands of its’ people.

Jack Ryan Jr. joins up with a group of U.S. Navy Seals to attempt to thwart the potential of WW III. The Seals and Jack have a healthy disdainful respect for each other. Jack believes the Seals are effective but not very eloquent in the execution of plans. The give and take between the two is humorous. Can the plans of the radicals in the North Korean military succeed in starting WWIII?

Don Bentley writes a very convincing saga of cold war tensions and events. The Supreme Leader is only incapacitated for a week which appears long enough to start WWIII. The insurgents hope to eliminate the leader of North Korea and put themselves in power.

There is not a dull moment in this novel, it’s fast-paced and filled with action. The protagonist is self-confident, independent, and efficient. The narrative is gripping and the conclusion satisfying. 5 stars – CE Williams

We received a complimentary review copy of this book from the author and publisher through NetGalley that in no way influenced the CE’s review. These are his honest opinions.

Book Details:

Genre: Military Thrillers, War Fiction, Historical Thrillers
Publisher: G P Putnam’s Sons
ASIN: B09FNW2FV4
Print Length: 492 pages
Publication Date: June 7, 2022
Source: Publisher and NetGalley
Title Link: Tom Clancy Zero Hour [Amazon]
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: Don Bentley is the NYT bestselling author of the HOSTILE INTENT and Tom Clancy ZERO HOUR. Don is a former FBI Special Agent, SWAT Team member, and Army Apache helicopter pilot. Learn more at http://www.donbentleybooks.com