Blood Line

Synopsis

After seeing too many travesties overlooked by the government Tom Rollins goes AWOL from his CIA Black-Ops unit. When Tom’s brother Anthony and Anthony’s girlfriend Alejandra are attacked by The Right Arm of the Republic, a Nazi white supremacist group in Harrow, Texas Tom sets out on a bloody path of revenge.

Review

Did you like classic action movies from the ’80s and ’90s like Raw Deal, Commando, Death Wish ( 2,3, and 4), The Substitute, Lionheart, etc? Then you will enjoy this tale of revenge by Paul Heatley.

I really liked this book. From the very first chapter, I got a big 80’s action movie vibe from it. I could just picture Van Damme, Schwarzenegger, Stallone, or Norris sitting in that bar waiting for a fight. And the action started right away. With most scenes, I couldn’t help but get that Deja Vu feeling of seeing or reading this before. But not in a bad way. I never felt as if the scenes were simply ripped off from other works. Instead, I found myself riding a wave of nostalgia as I read. I really looked forward to reading about Tom hunting down each of the people responsible for his “family’s” attack and the action that would ensue.

And that was one of the parts of the book I was a little disappointed in. While I love reading about the hero really going to town on some evil characters, there needs to be some back and forth. If there is no struggle then a story falls short. Without a good villain, a story becomes bland and easy. Nobody wants to see a movie where Superman faces off against a 95lb purse snatcher. And that’s what the action seemed like in this book, at least to me. There was not enough pushback against Tom to give any sense of real danger or urgency.

The story also has a subplot involving mercenaries and the FBI. While they are brought up regularly, in a novel about a brother’s revenge these parts always just seemed out of place and forced into the story. I understand why they were added but for me, they just didn’t do much other than distract from the real story I wanted to read about and that I was hoping there was more of.

One of the things I liked about this book (though I know some people will find it lazy or a cop-out) was the lack of technical details. Heatley has a very blunt, straightforward style of writing. When someone hacks a computer in this book, they tap a keyboard for a few minutes and it’s hacked. There isn’t a page and a half of technical explanations that only a real-life hacker or computer software engineer would understand explaining what they are doing. And while I feel there could have been a little more effort put into those scenes I did like having the break from those paragraphs that mean absolutely nothing to me and that make me feel like I stepped into the wrong advanced physics class lecture.

Like the classic movies I referred to earlier, this book isn’t something you pick up when you want to form a deep emotional connection with characters or story-line. This is for when you want a quick enjoyable read that you can just enjoy without having to put a lot of thought into it. I know sometimes that is just what I’m looking for.

I’d give it another half star if that was possible for 3.5 stars.

3 and a Half Masks

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Blood Line (A Tom Rollins Thriller Book 1)

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