Review: Enjoyable thriller
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 6, 2014
Saint Death, Black Dog Publishing, an e-book by Mark Dawson is one of his John Milton series.The stage is set in an opening that describes a massacre with a description of an extended, somewhat grisly, decapitation of one victim. It then proceeds with the basic plot that follows the arrival of John Milton in Juarez, Mexico and his interaction with a number of characters who are interesting in themselves. John is a former soldier with exceptional qualifications who previously had worked for the British equivalent of the CIA and now was wanted by them as a rogue operative. He has managed to remain anonymous and `under the radar' by working gradually from south to north, mostly as a cook, to this present location where he again gains employment in a popular local restaurant. Juarez is the base of operations of a powerful drug cartel as well as heavily implicated in the disappearance of numerous young women. Another young woman who is authoring a blog about these missing women persuades a fearful individual who has gained attention of these men to meet with her and her male photographer boy friend. Because her blog has brought unwanted attention to the activity, members of the cartel who are responsible decide to do away with this source. Several of their gunmen are sent to accomplish the job. From here on the story escalates to follow John's heavy active involvement and that of an honest police officer who begins by only trying to survive his last week of duty before retirement, his partner, a `hit man' who has been hired to bring back the individual who did the original decapitation, members of the British organization who now have found the `uncovered' John, a Russian spy, members of the cartel and, of course, the blogger who, thanks to John's quick and forceful activity survived the attack.In summary, the book is well written with almost incessant, largely credible activity and characters that should provide a few hours of enjoyable reading, especially for devotees of the thriller genre. Reviewed by John H. Manhold, award winning fiction/non-fiction author.