Blood in the Streets is book three in William Esmont's Kurt Vetter series. The plot is tight and the possibilities are chillingly realistic.

I have not read the first two books in the series so can not speak to this volume's relative strength but I found this to be a well-written story with the recurring characters well-developed. They would likely have been even more rounded were I familiar with the earlier volumes.

I listened to the audio version and found the narration to be quite good. I would stop short of saying very good but it was close. There were times when I felt it was a little flat but overall it was understandable and added to the experience of the story.

Reviewed from a copy made available via LibraryThing. ( )

***Won in a LibraryThing Members giveaway***
Everything about this was ok, average, middle of the road-ish...etc. It had the feel of a very condensed global political thriller in the veins of Tom Clancy, but because it was condensed things happened at random with not real feel of inertia building to a decision. Perhaps the prior novels would have explained this obvious new world in which these events are taking place, but it seemed like North Korea attacking China and then Japan just jumping in all seemed to be plot devices with no thought behind it or reasoning as to why things happened. Again, it may be due to the short length but things just occurred too easily for the characters. They happen to be living in coincidence as the deck is stacked in their favor.

Aside from that, the writing is good. The scenes came off more or less believable. I thought there would be more focus around Kurt Vetter, but it appears he is a secondary, maybe even tertiary character in this series. It didn't really feel right, almost like there was no central hero character. No Jack Ryan.

The story as best I can describe, has a more progressive North Korea wanting to gain some production share of Asia. They resolve to steal it away from China by disrupting their everyday lives. So they stage some attacks to seem like it is Chinese on Chinese. This starts a civil war type endgame...but then everyone figures out it was the Koreans and then nuclear war breaks out quick as you like. And then for some reason Japan thinks it a good idea to take this opportunity to reclaim some island territories rich in oil. Nukes start going off everywhere, and somehow Amanda and Kurt are at the epicenter of all this and are the ones to sneak into the Japanese airbase and allow the US to hack their network and stop nuclear holocaust...

I don't know. A little hard to believe this chain of events could happen at all, let alone in the way described. Again perhaps the previous books set up all this turmoil in the Far East, but it was not alluded to or fleshed out here so it made it seem like these nations just make decisions without thinking of all outcomes.

Narration was ok. some of the voices were odd, and some of the inflection and delivery made me question the severity level of the given situation...are they in danger or not, is it sinister conspiracy or harmless banter. As stated in the first line of this review, the whole thing was "ok." ( )

Another installment of fast paced government cover-ups and political disputes. This is about the same length as the first two novels in the series and again Amanda and Kurt are main players. This time though, they are dealing with China, North Korea, and Japan. This book delved more into the characters emotions than the past books which really helped keeping up the reader's interest in the events and what was going to happen to the characters. I have to say, I'm hooked on this series and can't wait until the next book comes out (if there will be a next one). ( )

I won this book on a give a way thru Library Things in exchange for an honest review. An interesting concept very well put together out of an idea that could actually come true make this an exciting read. Exciting page turner as it flits thru and gives you the drama unfolding from different perspectives. A page turner for sure! ( )

Good read but I felt I was missing out on something. I would suggest reading the first two books before reading this one. ( )