Review: Three Stars
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 29, 2014
The un-named protagonist of the short (114 pages) e-book The Professional Freelancer has worked in a variety of entry-level jobs (fast-food, telemarketing, door-to-door selling, painting houses, lifeguard and more) and has not had any success at any of them (fires, accidents and government raids have all ended his employment).Now, the computer genius friend or the un-named protagonist has used his connections to get the un-named protagonist a job at a software firm. But, three weeks into this job, he loses it thanks to yet another government raid. The government is looking for something and the un-named protagonist has no idea what it is (but...he does have a USB flash drive with some strange code that he has brought home and left in his car - the car that won't start and has been left to sit in the driveway for a while, now).So, the un-named protagonist goes out, gets dumped by his girlfriend, loses his apartment due to a failure to pay his rent (and two months back rent) because he has no job and moves in with his sister and her bully husband and their child. But, Will comes up with a new career for him - a freelancer, which is a fancy way of saying that he'll do all sorts of odd jobs. He visits someone's grandmother in a nursing home while that person is away on a trip, mows lawns, tutors kids and walks dogs.Eventually, his "cases" lead him to a run-in with a Korean mafia boss. And, eventually, he re-discovers the long-lost USB flash drive and that leads to a run-in with another crime boss, which is where our story starts. The book actually begins with the un-named protagonist is being beaten for the information on the USB flash drive and information about his now-defunct employer. The entire story is a flashback interspersed with the action with the mafia boss.While the story moves along briskly, I found the main character (the un-named protagonist) to be a difficult character to like and to root for. I found myself agreeing with his bully brother-in-law more and more as the story. His comments about wanting put his nephew on Ritalin and the way he treats him pretty much sealed the deal for me. What is supposed to be a story of a lovable loser making good (which is exactly where the story is when the main character helps with the euchre tournament in the nursing home in the middle of the story) just fell short.Disclosure: A review copy of this e-book was provided to me by the author in exchange for an honest review.