The Man Who Came Uptown by George Pelecanos

Michael Hudson makes some bad choices as a D.C. youth and ends up in prison.  There he meets Anna, the prison librarian who changes his life.  She engages Michael in reading, the classics primarily, which make him want to be a better man. 

Michael is suddenly released from prison when a P.I., Phil Ornaizon intimidates a witness into withdrawing his testimony against Michael.  Michael returns to his D.C. neighborhood, finds a job washing dishes, and becomes a voracious reader.  Coincidently, Anna lives in his neighborhood and continues to recommend books to support his new found hobby.  Ornaizon, however, has other plans for Michael.  The P.I. runs a criminal side business where he robs crooks of ill-gotten gains and continually pesters Michael to join him.  Michael feels some loyalty to Ornaizon but truly wants to go straight.

I love the way Pelecanos brings out both the good and bad in his characters.  They are all flawed but have many redeeming qualities that make you root for them and hope they make good choices… such an honest and intimate view of humanity.  No one does this as well as Pelecanos.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance look.

Past Tense by Lee Child

Jack Reacher is in Maine headed to California when he decides to visit his father’s birthplace, Laconia, New Hampshire.  After asking around and doing some research at the town hall, Reacher discovers the small village where his father lived is no longer inhabited and the neighbors are hostile.

Meanwhile, a Canadian couple check into a secluded motel nearby and find the motel owners lie to them, then delay their departure.  What devious plans do the owners have for the unsuspecting couple and how will Reacher come to the rescue?

This is the typical Jack Reacher novel: show up, find someone in need, kick some ass, charm the intelligent female, and move on.  It’s always a worthwhile adventure.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance look. 

West Coast Don thinks this book was okay. As Midwest Dave writes, it is  straightforward Child. There are two main plots which develop slowly, but once the plots collide, the action gets more intense. The story is so-so, but if you like Reacher, then you'll find this worthwhile. In this book, Child emphasizes the physical size of Reacher more than I remember him doing, and I wonder if that is a reaction to the use of the diminutive Tom Cruise as the movie version of the protagonist.

The Assassin

The Assassin is the fourth book in the Isabella Rose series by Mark Dawson, a prolific author of whom I’ve only recently become aware. While doing cliffhanger endings on the first three books which force the reader to the next novel if one wants to reach a conclusion, this one comes to an ending, sort of. At least it gets to a pause in what has been nonstop action through the first four books. Isabella is still only 16 or 17 years old at the conclusion of this one, but she is an intriguing character that kept me engaged in the series. Finally in this book, she becomes a central figure in the action as the bad guys are more clearly defined and then killed off one after the other. The writing and character development is good but not classic. The plot is somewhat believable, but there is something compelling, something I’ve not identified that is appealing about these stories. The novels are not stand-alone books like some writers of this genre. One must start at the beginning and work your way through them. I’m enamored enough with Dawson that I’ll probably go back to an earlier series, probably his Beatrix Rose series, Isabella’s mother, an assassin who taught Isabella her tradecraft.

The Agent

The Agent: Act III, is the third novel in the four-book series about Isabella Rose who has reached the age of 16 years. The story opens with another terrorist attach in England, this one being a bombing that takes place in Parliament. We learn more about the bad guys who have been pulling strings in the background, people who have grand plans for being in control of the world. We also learn more about their tools, a masterful but flawed group of soldier-assassins. And there’s a hint about what makes Isabella so special. Michael Pope’s family has been kidnapped as a means of forcing him to stay in the game. I was beginning to get tired of the unfinished thriller endings, but I needed to find out how this ended, so book four, The Assassin was next up on my reading queue.

The Asset: Act II

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Mark Dawson’s second novel in the four-book series about Isabella Rose, The Asset: Act II, opens with another terrorist act in England. Then we meet Maia for the first time, a female assassin of remarkable physical talents. Maia is a key figure in the rest of these novels. Isabella, still just 15 years old, as the result of Michael Pope’s involving her in an undercover scheme, has been kidnapped and is on a private jet headed for Syria when engine troubles forces a landing in Turkey where she and her captors are all forcibly taken into custody by ISIS. It’s not always clear who are the good guys. This is nonstop action which led me to immediately follow the story into the third and fourth books.

The Angel: Act I

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The Angel is the opening novel in Mark Dawson’s four-book series about Isabella Rose, the daughter of an assassin, Beatrix Rose, who was the protagonist of an earlier series of novels. Dawson is a remarkably prolific writer not previously reviewed in this bog. How have we missed him? The book opens with a well-written terrorist act in central London, and then we are introduced to the main characters in this series including Isabella who is only 15 years old. She had a murky early life and we only know that her mother Beatrix had spent the last year of her life training Isabella in the art of being a spy. It seems that Isabella was a very quick learner. We learned that Beatrix’s last acts were to kill the six people who had betrayed her, and she got to five of the six. However, her illness advanced and left her unable to kill the sixth. Isabelle completed that final task in honor of her mother, and now she was trying to get on with her life. Captain Michael Pope who had a long history in clandestine services was on a quest and he needed help, and he turned to this girl to help him. But then there is the master spy puppeteer, a man named Vivian Bloom, and by the end of this first book, Dawson has introduced us to him. This book had a sort of “Perils of Pauline” ending, which I typically hate – but this one was compelling enough to immediately drive me to the next novel, The Asset.

Red War by Kyle Mills and Vince Flynn

Mitch Rapp teams up with the former Russian version of himself, Grisha Avarov to save the world from WWIII.  The Russian president, Maxium Krupin develops an inoperable brain tumor and invades Latvia which causes a NATO mobilization.  The aggression is designed as a ‘wag the dog’ style cover while Krupin secretly receives medical treatment.  But the war quickly escalates and the use of nuclear weapons is pondered.  CIA director Irene Kennedy finds out about Krupin’s condition and motive and sends Rapp and Avarov to find and ‘neutralize’ Krupin before he pushes the red button.  Scary stuff and a little too close for comfort in our modern world.

Thanks to Simon and Schuster for the advance copy.