Onslaught

A RIP-ROARING THRILLER, THE FIRST IN A NEW SERIES - 5 STARS

The hero is Steve Flynn, a former Royal Marine, ex-cop and sport fishing skipper. When he is accused of murdering his boss, his idyllic life in the Canary Islands has suddenly lost its charm. Arrested by a tenacious and corrupt Spanish detective, Flynn knows he is facing a grim future unless he can somehow prove his innocence. His ex-girlfriend is then kidnapped and her life used as a bargaining chip and the only way he can save her is to re-hone his old policing and military skills and put himself in the firing line against a murderous gang for whom violent death is a way of life.

This is a barnstorming thriller from an author not well known for such adventure yarns. Trouble arrives very early in the form of gangster Aleksander Bashkim and his two heavily muscled sons who muscle in on Flynn's partner's share of his boat. When his partners tries to back out he comes to a violent end and the rest of the book is a relentless tale of the battle to death between the protagonists Flynn and Bashkim.

The fight scenes and deaths are quite explicitly described but they tie in with the story and are not included just for the sake of it. Flynn is accused of the murder of two people close to him by a detective who is beholden to Bashkim and, although you know that the detective will meet a grisly end, the character is so well developed that you almost can't wait to see how he eventually meets his maker!

The second half of the book effortlessly took me reader through a budding romance between Flynn and a good cop, Maria Santiago and there is a sting in the tail at the end of the book surrounding Santiago. Towards the end, there is an uneasy alliance between Flynn and Bashkim when the latter kidnaps the former's ex-girlfriend, Karen - if Flynn takes a package on board Faye to a destination some 1,500 miles away, Bashkim will release Karen. However, each side's admiration for the other's ruthlessness does little to staunch the bloodshed and the book careers towards its excellent conclusion.

I found it easy to engage with Flynn and his cohorts although, if I have one complaint about the book, it is that too many of Flynn's acquaintances are killed off before their characters are developed. That aside, this is great thriller fare from a long line of good versus evil story lines, but I felt that it was a reasonably fresh offering and I will be watching out for the rest of the books in this series with eager anticipation.

Digger95

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review