I'm almost halfway through this book and I'm setting it aside. It's a competently written thriller and it confronts some of the realities of gangs in Chicago but I'm not finding it compelling.

The main male character, an ex-soldier who decides to take on the gangs and find his brother's killer all by himself doesn't seem real to me. I'm not invested in what happens to him.

The rest feels familiar in a have-I read-this-already? way that is OK but doesn't make me want to know what happens next.

It would make an OK movie in of the '21 Bridges' type of action movies that Amazon likes ( )

3.5 stars

My blog post about this book is at this link. ( )

Jason Palmer is recently arrived back from Iraq. One day he is jogging and a car stops and someone want to force him into the car and discuss what his brother, Michael, is doing. Jason disarms the men and leaves them wondering who they tried to strong arm.
Michael is a crusader. His wife was killed by a teenager in a stolen car and now Michael works for Washington Matthew's gang recovery program.
Michael doesn't tell Jason more, but soon after, he's murdered and his bar burned down.
Michael's 8 year old son, Billy, saw the killers and the next night 3 men break into Michale's home looking for Billy but Jason hears them and they escape.
Officer Elena Cruz is a street cop and takes an interest in the case. One night both she and Jason are tipped off that the man who killed Michael will be at a meeting where they're selling drugs and weapons to gangs. What happens that night sets the scene for the remainder of the story.
Sakey is a good writer. The characters have flaws but are believable and Jason, as a character is well developed as is his relationship with his 8 year old nephew, Billy.

The story didn't cover any new ground and didn't hold my attention. ( )

This was a good book, not great, but good. The flow of the story was smooth and the characters were okay. I really liked the author's previous work, "The Blade Itself", along with another one by him, "Good People" better than this one.

This story seemed a bit stale, the plot about "dirty" cops, bad politicians, gangs, money, murder....has been done so many times, it would take something really outstanding to merit a higher score from this reviewer.

If you just want something good to read, this one will do. But I would recommend the previous two mentioned over this one if you are looking for something more than mediocre. ( )

***** Potential spoiler alert ***** very enjoyable, personally consider it a step up from his first novel "the blade itself" and given that i really liked that this one is excellent, some things that I consider were portrayed really well were the love of parent to child (michael palmer & billy) plus the terror / disconnection of a former solder reinserted into standard society (jason palmer). that said my one minor quibble would be that I didn't rate the portrayal of billy's reaction to the death of his father michael - felt the option of shock and numbness rather than overwhelming grief incorporating tears, rage, loss was the easy out and unconvincing in the circumstances particularly where the child has previously lost a mother and now a father as well.... ( )