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Like Jack Reacher – Carter Blake by Author Mason Cross

The English summer which is usually full of bad weather, some days are slightly mild whilst others are absolutely freezing. This is when I kind of think okay lets get a book and stay indoors as going outside isn’t really an option. However the summer that we just had was off the charts, most days we were waking up to the sun, each day was a total surprise. This new-found summer season meant that I was rather busy, mostly with sun bathing and outdoor activities with the family but also sorting out the garden which consisted of watching the grass and then panicking as I watched it disappear into dust!

I saw that the author Mason Cross had tweeted about his latest book on offer for 99p. Yes 99p which is really a freebie in a way. I thought to myself “hey, why not, what is there to lose”. His last books were really, really good and the main character was like Jack Reacher in most ways. See my previous review here

So here we are in late summer reading the book.

The thing about Mason Cross books

I thought I knew what the main character Carter Blake was like from reading the Mason Cross previous books. He seems to be Mr average in appearance but with an intensity and a problem solving mind that helps him achieve his goals, which is to find people that don’t want to be found. Jack Reacher intense but not so brutal, maybe a conscious that keeps him in check when the need arises. In this book Carter Blake is at a loss from the start. Someone has seen their sister, they are sure of it, one glimpse whilst passing on a bus. No big deal you think, the only problem is, their sister died 15 years ago. Blake is asked to find this person. This thing is, he isn’t 100% sure that she is alive either. Carter is stuck, which I quite liked as Mason Cross delivers a real clever plot by using first person writing so that you can feel the anguish and turmoil in Blakes thought process, not fully realising if he is on the right track.

Is this the best Carter Blake book?

For me I think it is. The plot situated in a Mountain area, a small town with locals whereby news travels faster than social media. There is a feeling of Carter being out of place in this back water area where everyone know each other and they don’t take kindly to strangers. The writing is top-notch from Mason Cross, scenes set to entice you into the drama as you realise death has hit this town and people are paranoid. A serial killer could be on the loose, the deaths start to mount up and the police plus Carter Blake don’t seem to be able to find out who is responsible

I found that what was brilliant about this book was the feeling of not knowing who was responsible for the killings. It made me want to keep turning every page until I found out. Usually you have a slight suspicion when you are reading a book about who the baddie really is. It was a bit like Lee Child’s Jack Reacher in that the writing was cleverly done so that each day is named at the start of the chapter and you can feel the tension build until the very last chapter as the days pass.

Is there any Jack Reacher action?

There is some action, mainly gun fights and the odd outside of the bar scuffle. Tense moments between the police and some rogue cops who think that Blake is treading on their toes. Nothing as gruesome as some Jack Reacher books or the Tom Wood novels SEE HERE!

Final thoughts

Without spoiling the plot for you, I was really surprised by how good this book was. Don’t get me wrong, Mason Cross is a brilliant author but for some reason I couldn’t imagine this topping the previous book I had read “A Time To Kill”. Each character is likable, each scene is descriptive, there is enough action for any reader of the Jack Reacher series. I suggest you go and buy it, then like me you will go onto the next book by Mason Cross. I have already ordered the previous book “Don’t Look For Me”. You can buy it HERE!

On a special note, the ending had me shocked, a bit like if you had watched an old movie (one of my favourites) titled “Usual Suspects”, it leaves you looking at the last page saying “WHAT”!!!!!!
Leave me some comments below – what do you think about this book and the Carter Blake series?

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Best crime thriller of 2018 – “Kill For Me” by author Tom Wood

I had been waiting for this book since reading the previous Tom Wood “The Final Hour” in July 2017 on holiday. This summer had high hopes, England were through to the semi-finals of the World Cup, Roger Federer (my favorite tennis player) was through to the quarter-finals at Wimbledon and Tom Wood’s new book was out soon.

Then it all went so, so wrong, England crashed out of the World Cup by losing to Croatia, Roger Federer lost to Kevin Anderson at Wimbledon. It was all left to Tom Wood to bring out a book that would be a decent read, maybe even better than the previous book “The Final Hour”.

Victor the Assassin

Tom Wood’s books are all about the assassin Victor. An ice cool hit man who like Jack Reacher has a skill set mainly centered around paranoia as there is always someone ready to kill him. The only way for him to stay alive is to be overly careful, always on the look out for enemies, never going a direct route to his destination just in case. Victor is more vicious than Jack Reacher, he wouldn’t think twice about killing you even if you had tried to help him. In this new book, Victor is a raw killing machine, more so that previous books. He covers his tracks, killing people, if it means that these people may try to eliminate him at a later date if he had kept them alive.

Is this the best Tom Wood book?

This book is the best crime thriller of 2018. Yes Hellbent was top of this list for 2018, this has now changed. Tom Wood has brought in a thriller that keeps you engaged all the way through, right until the end.

Victor is now his own man, arranging contracts through his broker himself rather than working for the CIA to fulfill their obligations. The book starts with Victor looking to purchase a gun, the people who are selling the gun are trying to set Victor up. This leads into a fight, killings and the typical Victor self-preservation instincts.  The scene is set so well, a bit like a western, Clint Eastwood style with an outlaw taking on multiple cowboys.

The main reason why this book is so much better than other crime thrillers is the plot. Victor is tasked with taking down a Cartel drug leader who is at logger heads with their sister (also a Cartel Drug lord) across the city. The problem is the contract is set up by one sister against the other, hoping that when the other sister is killed by Victor, the city will be back to normal and peaceful. This is a family war that Victor is now involved with, outside of his familiar European territory and in a city that seems to have no real laws. Everyone is potentially an enemy to Victor, who can’t blend in as easy, which only heightens his surveillance skills even more.

Is there any action?

The action in this book is intense, from the opening page set up to the final end scene we are treated to gun battles, martial arts, wrestling and genuine skilled assassins trying to kill. One of the double-cross moments in the book is that Victor is meant to be the only person on this kill contract but the person who orders the hit has also without Victors knowledge hired another assassin. This Assassin is exactly like Victor, highly trained, enjoys the kill and ready to get to the Cartel Drug lord before Victor does. As you can probably guess, the new assassin decides to go after Victor as well, so that they can get all the money from the job.

Final thoughts

The pace of the book and the intriguing character of Victor means that for me this is the best book of the year so far. Jack Reacher fans will be able to enjoy this book before the latest Lee Child book “Past tense” comes out. I would argue that Victor is a better character than Jack Reacher as we don’t know Victor’s past yet.  In this book, some moments come back from the past every now and again to make you wonder how he got to where he is but we don’t yet know what made him an assassin in the first place.

The action is hard and gritty, people are shot in the knee, thrown through windows, shot in the back of the head, strangled, drowned, you name it. Guns are described intricately, scenes are laid out so that you imagine you are there in the hot city of Guatemala. I think Tom Wood has brought out all his skills in this book to make every Jack Reacher fan want to start the Victor series.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

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Lee Child – Jack Reacher Book 21 – Night School

If like me you have read through all the Jack Reacher books you may have got to book number 20 titled “Make Me” and thought, “yes, that was good, probably stop now Lee Child”.

I mean Reacher is getting older and what more can we expect from him.  As a fan I didn’t really want to see Jack Reacher not fighting or remenissing about previous plots and conquests.

I guess I was wrong to even suggest that Lee Child should stop writing about Jack Reacher, as we now have book number 21 titled “Night School”

 

 

If you are reading the books backwards in the wrong order, from the author Lee Child book list, then can I please say politely “STOP”.  In my humble opinion, you need to start at book 1 “Killing Floor” and take a look at the Blog “the Jack Reacher books reading order” on my site to get the best out of them.

Right firstly lets get down to the good stuff.

Night School is it the real deal, is it up to the normal standards?

Okay lots of questions and thoughts about this book so here we go.  Lee Child is obviously an exceptional writer, his fast pace scene setting and the selective descriptions he uses really capture your imagination and makes you feel that you are in the story itself. As normal this book is so easy to read due to Lee Child’s unique writing style. Going back to Reacher’s early days is also a clever aspect of this book as it has endless possibilities for further “spin off” books in the future and gives you a look at a younger Reacher before he left the army.

For me, even though these aspects would normally enhance the reading experience of a Lee Child novel, this time it seemed to give me a slightly different feel as I progressed through the story. Maybe Lee Child is a victim of his own success as I don’t recall any previous “Reacher” books whereby I really struggled to get to grips with it right until the end.

I had to keep really putting the work in to read this book and try and get excited about what I was reading.  Again it could be a bit like the Star Wars Last Jedi film whereby I already had an opinion of what was going to happen.  Upon reading the book or seeing the Star Wars last Jedi film, it just didn’t fit into my idea of what I thought was going to happen.  This doesn’t mean to say its a bad thing, just that I prefer the continuity of characters through a series rather than changing things just because!

The main plot of Night School, revolves around an undercover agent overhearing a request for 100 million from middle eastern contacts but no one knows what this request is for. Reacher teams up with an FBI agent and a CIA agent to solve the mystery but this really doesn’t work as their isn’t much communication between the two agents during the book. Reacher goes off and teams up with Neagley to solve the mystery but during this part of the story, there is a lot of chopping and changing between characters that you kind of get the impression that the book has been written for movie/film scenes in the future.

An example of this would be Reacher chatting through plans in a hotel then stepping out to fight some undercover officers. This type of thing happens throughout the book which slowly becomes boring as there doesn’t seem to be any need for the fight scenes like in previous books.

The ending is really not a massive highlight either as most of the books in the series usually are, this leads me to think maybe the main plot from the start just wasn’t a good enough subject to get the average Reacher fan excited.

Verdict

Overall I think the book would in my eyes a much higher rating if you were new to the Jack Reacher series and had just started reading the Lee Child novels. As a Reacher fan, for me it would probably be the worst of the series due to the incoherent writing and the switching between the scenes.

I’d love to hear your comments on this book so let me know if you agree or disagree with me.  Night School can be bought here

Thanks