Backlash by Brad Thor, Scot Harvath Series, Book 19

When I got into reading one of the first espionage series that I got into was the Scot Harvath series by Brad Thor.  Backlash is the 19th book in the series and if the bro-mance spy thriller type books are your bag, as Austin Power's would say, then "this should be in your bag, baby".

Without getting into the story, this is your typical Scot Harvath story, told by Armand Schultz.  Backlash picks up where Spymaster ends, and finds Scot in hot water in a very cold place.  The story is good, and every Scot Harvath fan should be happy when finished.

Picking up the picture, and his glass, he headed outside. The sun was almost low enough to touch the water. He wanted to watch it disappear. Then he wanted to start thinking about what he was going to do next.

Cue the contemplating music. The end.

I rate this 8 of 10

Backlash by Brad Thor
Scot Harvath Series, Book 19

Group Fifteen Files - Volume 1

Mark Dawson's Group Fifteen Files, Volume 1
is a collection of 3 books done in collaboration with three other authors for an exciting collection of novellas that are really quick and easy to read and are really good.  All three books are completely different and original with lots of imagination and effort put in them.  I felt entertained the entire time I was reading them and never wanted to put the book down.  If you enjoy Scot Harvath or Mich Rapp you will enjoy these novellas.

The first book is Scorpion: A Group Fifteen Novella (Group Fifteen Files Book 1) by Mark Dawson w/ Steve Cavanagh and my review is here.

The second book is Witness X by Mark Dawson w/ Scott Mariani, A Group Fifteen Novella (Group Fifteen Files Book 2) and my review is here.

The third and final novella of Volume 1 is Little Sister by Mark Dawson w/ Mark Ridpath, A Group Fifteen Novella (Group Fifteen Files Book 3) and my review is here.

If you want to read these books and you have Kindle Unlimited then you can borrow them for free.

I rate this tome 8 of 10.  A really good read.

Group Fifteen Files - Volume 1 by Mark Dawson w/ Steve Cavanagh, Scott Mariani, and Mark Ridpath

Little Sister by Mark Dawson w/ Mark Ridpath, A Group Fifteen Novella (Group Fifteen Files Book 3)

Little Sister is the last in Volume 1 of the Group Fifteen Files and has probably the least written about them. Usually, the protagonist is a member of Group Fifteen and the antagonist is a mercenary or government agency with an agent in Britain that was up to no good. This time we find Finley Karsh, the owner of a hedge fund company called Lochalsh Capital, being blackmailed by a former employee or at least attempted to be blackmailed but Karsh knows how to handle the situation, and he handles it with a historical luger. He handles it with murder. Karsh is in accompaniment with his right-hand man Jesse Brunner and their girlfriends Olya and Gudrún.  Olya gets suspicious and leaves her boyfriend Jesse when they return to London, but she cannot persuade Gudrún.to leave Karsh.  Keeping up?

Now enter the hero of our story, the big, and I mean big brother of Gudrún, an Icelandic native and former British SAS member Björn Thorsson now getting his masters at University College London studying old Norse and doing some language classes on the side. Enter Olya, a woman he never liked because of her influence on his younger sister, to get him to talk Gudrún into leaving Karsh.

Now to convolute my review more Karsh has a contract out on him from a rival mining company because they are both bidding on some mining project in a country nobody has ever heard of, so Group Fifteen is called in to protect Karsh, kill the mercenary with a 100% kill rate record and in the end save Queen, Country and the British way of life.

No more spoilers, the book is only 126 pages and takes a little over a couple of hours to read. Mark and Mark cram a lot into this little book and it comes out to be like the other books in this series, a little better than average read.

As for the books, if you have Kindle Unlimited you borrow the books for free or for a limited time buy the Volume for only 99 cents, which I did.  I wonder who gets the 99 cents?

I rate this book 6 of 10.  Like I said it is a good read worth reading if you are into this genre.

Little Sister by Mark Dawson w/ Mark Ridpath

A Group Fifteen Novella (Group Fifteen Files Book 3)

Scorpion: A Group Fifteen Novella (Group Fifteen Files Book 1) by Mark Dawson w/ Steve Cavanagh

If you've noticed anything about what I read is that I love series and that is 99% of what I read.  Last year I started reading the Eddie Flynn series by Steve Cavanagh and I was impressed by how good the series is.  When I saw that Steve was attached to this book and after I read the description I thought I would read the three novellas that are out now under the series name "Group Fifteen Files" which Dawson uses different writers.  How much Cavanagh and the other writers contribute I have no idea, but what the heck, go for it.  I've never read any of Dawson's John Milton books but I probably should add them to my ever-lengthening list.

This novella is written bouncing back and forth between the protagonist, John Milton, and the antagonist, the Scorpion, and every now and then third person.  Milton's job is to kill the Scorpion and the Scorpion's job is to kill 3 people. A Saudi prince, a former war correspondent Hailey Banks, and a third unknown person.  Milton's job is to catch the Scorpion when he goes after Banks.  Like most books, it see-saws the advantage between the main characters to see who comes out on top, or in a book's place in the last chapter.  It's sort of easy to guess who makes it to the last chapter.

If you want a nicely written spy novel that you can read in a couple of hours then give Scorpion a shot. I'm sure a lot of you have read some of the John Milton series (no, not Paradise Lost) and are familiar with the character.  I'm not. I'm rating this a 6 of 10, a little better than average.

Scorpion by Mark Dawson w/ Steve Cavanagh

A Group Fifteen Novella (Group Fifteen Files Book 1)

Out of the Dark, by Gegg Hurwitz. 4th Book in the Orphan X Series

2018 was a good year for me finding new series to read and I found two great series.  The first was the Eddie Flynn series by Steve Cavanaugh and the second was the Orphan X series by Gregg Hurwitz.  Out of the Dark is the fourth book in the Orphan X series and it is one of the best books of the spy thriller genre I've read in a long time.  The one thing I like about it is that Evan Smoak, also Orphan X and The Nowhere Man is he is human, well more human when compared to Scot Harvath or Mitch Rapp.

Out of the Dark starts out, well go to where I blogged about the first two chapters here.

Orphan is has been trying to retire from his assassination gig for years but his past comes back to haunt him.  He tries to do his 'mea culpa repentance' by being the Nowhere Man, a man that sometimes resorts to violence to protect somebody that can't take care of themselves when violence occurs. He is also a man of rules.  Rules that have been drilled in his head since he was twelve.  So this time when his past comes back to haunt him, in the form of the President of the United States he breaks one of his rules and takes on his Nowhere Man personification at the same time as he becomes Orphan X.  As Smoak bounces between the two and between the east and west coast, his job gets more dangerous, and one of those jobs is to kill the President.

I love this book.  I want to give it a 10 rating but I don't like handing them out so I'm going to give this a 9.  If you like books like this, then start with the origin book, Orphan X.  It'll hook ya.

Out of the Dark by Gregg Hurwitz
Orhan X series book 4.

Out of the Dark by Gregg Hurwitz, Orphan X #4, Part 1

Evan Smoak had a contract put out on his life. Jonathan Bennett had put it out on the Nowhere Man.  Evan Smoak is the Nowhere Man.  Jonathan Bennett is the president of the United States.

"Ending Jonathan Bennett was the ultimate Nowhere Man mission." 

Before Evan Smoak was Evan Smoak he was 12 years old when he was put into a program training orphans to be weapons. Before Evan Smoak there was only Orphan X. If you had read the first 3 books of the series you would have learned that Orphan X was no longer, now it was the Nowhere Man, sort of a 'pay it forward' program with the Nowhere Man looking out for the small guy, the kid being engulfed into a gang, a girl being raped, somebody that could not take care of themselves in situations that people like you or me could never handle.

Before Jonathan Bennett was president, he was the man that called the shots and I do mean shots.  He depended on the Orphan program and Orphan X was his go-to Orphan.  Now that he was president he wanted to cover all traces of any black ops, any operation that did not fit into the constitution,  Orphan X had to die.

I wrote this after the second chapter.  I love this series and can't wait for the rest.

Lions of Lucerne by Brad Thor, Scot Harvath Series, Book 1

I decided to re-read one of the books that I guess you would call bro-mance books.  Spy thrillers were the All-American hero can't be slowed down or killed. Secret Service Agent Scot Harvath escapes avalanches, numerous concussions, gun battles, freezing water and saves our democracy and gets the girl in the end.

I think the only reason I like books like this was that I was brought up on Roy Rogers and John Wayne movies and this genre are just like those old westerns except modernized for today's way of life.

I won't really review it, I just wanted to get the audio-book and read along so I had to search for the best deal.  I just wished the library system I belong to had a better and bigger choice on audio-books.  I'll probably save some money and do the next book in the series, Path of the Assassin.

On a side note, the audio-book cover is one of the best book covers I've seen in a while.

Rating 9 of 10 on my scale.  This is one of the books that got me hooked.

Lions of Lucerne by Brad Thor
Scot Harvath series book 1