Review: Personal by Lee Child

***** 5 Stars

First of all I just have to comment on that cover. Jack's in London and what a ride he has and not just on the underground. Yes Reacher takes the tube.

I was incredibly excited to receive an ARC of this book back in June as Lee Child is one of my favourite authors and Jack Reacher one of my favourite characters. I've been on a long journey with Reacher since the first book 'The Killing Floor' was published in the UK back in 1998 and here we are 16 years later on book number 19 and what a book it is.

The book starts with Reacher picking up a copy of the Army Times and seeing ad in the personal's section addressed to him.'Jack Reacher call Rick Shoemaker.'  He could just ignore the ad but he doesn't and what happens next takes him on a hunt for a potential assassin visiting both Paris and London in a race against time. His job to track down an old enemy that he put inside sixteen years ago and prevent him from being anyway near the fast approaching G8 summit being held in London.

A Reacher book wouldn't be a Reacher book without Jack having a beautiful female sidekick and in Personal it comes in the form of Casey Nice, a rookie analyst for the CIA recruited straight out of Yale. Nice accompanies Reacher to London where they walk into a turf war between Serbian thugs and an old fashioned East End gang called the Romford Boys and one of them is hiding John Kott the ex army sniper that Reacher is hunting for.

This book is a is a real page turner that moves along at a break neck speed and I just couldn't put it down until I'd finished. It was great seeing Jack walk the streets of London and reading about familiar places although I did think of the tv show 'Birds Of A Feather' when Chingford is mentioned. For me Personal is Reacher at his coolest, facing danger head on because this time it is personal and Kott has him in his sights.
I also liked hearing a little more about Reacher's mother who died and is buried in Paris. It was very touching to see him visit her grave and to hear about what she did during World War 2. The only downside to this book is now that I have finished it I am going to have to wait a year until the next one. Unless Lee Child can be persuaded to write book 20 a little quicker. Pretty please!

Thanks to NetGalley & Random House/Bantam Dell for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

Review: NYPD Red 2 by James Patterson and Marshall Karp

**** 4 Stars

I was very excited when I saw that James Patterson was a releasing a 2nd book in the NYPD Red series. I really enjoyed the first book when it came out a couple of years ago and remember at the time hoping Patterson would turn it into a series.

NYPD Red is a special task force within the New York police department whose job it is to look after the high profile cases involving the rich and famous. In the first book we met Detective Zach Jordan and his beautiful new partner who is also his ex Detective Kylie MacDonald. Together they solve the case of The Chameleon a psychopath who is tormenting people connected to the film industry. Zach still has feelings for Kylie who is now married and her husband Spencer almost becomes one of the Chameleon's victims but Zach saves his life.

This book joins the detectives 3 months on when they are pulled onto the Hazmat Killer case by the Mayor who is just days away from an election and who is desperate when the latest victim is revealed as his opposition's campaign manager. So we enter the murky world of politics and cover ups with Jordan and MacDonald on the hunt for a vigilante serial killer who is targeting those he believed have not been punished for their crimes. He leaves each victim in a white hazmat suit somewhere really public. Throw in the mafia and the police are really up against it.

At the beginning of the story we are introduced to two teenage boys Dave and Gideon who are hell bent on getting revenge on a class mate responsible for the rape of Dave's sister, Meredith. Fast forward 12 years and that revenge is still strong with one or both of them possibly being the Hazmat Killer.

As with all of Patterson's books this one was a real page turner, I loved the chemistry between Zach and Kylie especially knowing that Zach still has feelings for Kylie and even though he is with Cheryl I am wondering where this partnership might lead to in the future. Yes this book isn't a work of literary fiction but I do love my James Patterson fix - the books allow me to completely switch off from the world and lose myself in the pages and this one was no exception. And OMG the twist- I just never saw that coming, I really did think that I had it all worked out. Fingers crossed there will be a book 3

Review: Season Of Fear by Brian Freeman

****1/2 - 4.5 Stars

This book had me hooked from the first few pages. We are thrown back 10 years to the bloody assassination of a high profile politician on a humid Florida evening and then as the book brings us back to the present time all of the dark secrets from that night 10 years ago begin to unfold, It becomes a real race for time as Tropical storm Chayla bears down on the Tampa Bay area with Cab desperate to save lives by finding out who was responsible for the assassinations 10 years before
It was wonderful to see Cab Bolton back after his debut in The Bone House, there is something quite irresistible about his character and the way in which Freeman writes him. I loved the exchanges between both him and his mother and him and his girlfriend Lala. I also loved the massive twist on the very last page, don't take a sneak peak though as it would ruin the whole book. Freeman has set the ending up perfectly for Cab Bolton book number 3 or at least I certainly hope that it is his intention to write book three.

To sum up the book was gripping and the politics as murky as the swamps that we visit in the novel. A real page turner & the only reason I didn't give it 5 stars was because I had worked out one of the major plot lines fairly early on & that meant when the reveal came it didn't have quite the impact.

Thanks to NetGalley & Quercus for the ARC of this book.