Review: Thriller Pacing with Great Characters and Descriptions
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 16, 2011
Logan Harper is the kind of guy who will jump in before he's had his morning coffee to help when a friend is being beaten up.  He will also give chase after the bad guys - even when it leads him from Cambria (one of those picturesque California coastal towns where one dreams of retiring ) to LA, Thailand and beyond.  He seems to have inherited this trait from his 79-year old father who has a posse of retired military friends who refer to themselves as Wise Ass Old Men or WAMO (yes, they know how to bend an acronym to make it fit.)Harper's Army and defense contractor experience give him the skills and the urging of his father sends him off on the search for the friend's missing granddaughter who may have been kidnapped. The WAMO team will access an international network of people to help Logan on his mission.  I love the idea of a shadow group of retired operatives with an incredible variety of skills ready to step up and help in the cause of justice, loyalty or to repay past favors.The great descriptive passages cover a wide range of old cars from an Isuzu Rodeo to a 1969 electric blue Chevrolet El Camino.  There are also spot on descriptions of LA, with excellent detail of the Venice Beach neighborhood and the Santa Monica Airport.  I can't vouch for the accuracy of the pictures that he paints when he gets to Thailand but I can say that one can feel the dampness and sniff the exotic smells.  The characters are so well drawn, even those who only appear for a page or two that one hopes to see them again.Frequently in thrillers you get a fast-paced read at the expense of character development.  This one balances the two with great skill.