Dez Goes Underground for Storm Warning

Storm Warning - James Byrne

Meet Desmond Aloysius Limerick, Dez to his friends (he insists on it). Dez could be charitably described as a tank: 5-foot-8 with a 50-inch chest… and all muscle. Brawn, but with a healthy helping of brain: he’s a Gatekeeper: he can open any door and keep it open as long as necessary, allowing in those who belong and keeping out those who don’t. Between gate jobs he’s a professional musician (bass guitar and piano) and a has recently spent time as a sous chef. Oh, and despite his unusual physique, he’s apparently irresistible to beautiful women.

It's for his skill with doors that the FBI reached out to Dez this time. Seems that a high-end research station deep (underground) in the Canadian Maritimes has gone radio silent, along with the staff of an underground mine and the village of Fuchstown ion the surface. The Feebs are mounting a hostage rescue team, and Dez asked to go along to open doors. He’s happy to join them, seeing that his occasional squeeze Petra Alexandris is one of the people with whom communication has ceased.

Just getting to Fuchstown proves to be difficult, partially because of violent winter storms and partially because of the mercenaries employed by the evil co-presidents of a mining equipment company; hell-bent on getting into the facility before anyone else… for some unknown reason.

The storms prevent the HRT from reaching the site, but Dez and a small group of non-FBI types make it to a deserted Fuchstown to find the sole elevator to the underground complex disabled. Well, disabled for anyone who’s not a Gatekeeper. As Dez repairs the machinery, a gaggle of mercs show up slinging lead with a .50-caliber machine gun. Dez’s party heads underground, where they find a standoff between the surviving townspeople and an unknown number of Russians; suspiciously militaristic for “mining engineers.” Oh, yeah, and there’s also an assassin roaming the tunnels and chambers. Well, at least Dez and Petra are reunited…

Given a surprising number of moles -- they ARE underground after all – and plenty of suspicion, misdirection, lies, and backstabbing (some literal), the action underground will prove to be non-stop. Expect plenty of action sprinkled liberally with surprises and not a little of Dez’s wry humor. Don’t worry about the psychopaths directing all the mayhem, though: they’ll get their just deserts. 

Storm Warning is the fourth Dez Limerick book from the pen of James Byrne (The Gatekeeper, Deadlock, Chain Reaction). Limerick has the skills of your typical Jason Stratham hero while combining many of the skills of a Mission Impossible team; not to mention a wicked sense of humor – definitely a modern-day renaissance man. While the breadth of his skillsets isn’t particularly believable (and Byrne needs more help with technical stuff than he’s getting), a trip into the willing suspension of disbelief with Mr. Limerick is always highly enjoyable.

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance review copy in exchange for my honest review.

copyright © 2025 scmrak

In Which Orphan X Draws Closer to Humanity

Antihero - Greg Hurwitz

If you’ve been reading the Orphan X series since the eponymous introductory book in 2016 (as have I), you have noticed by now that the famously stoic, OCD-riddled Evan Smoak has been doing quite a lot of “personal growth” through the first ten installments. Number eleven, Antihero, takes The Nowhere Man to places in his psyche he’s never visited before… and it’s pretty fascinating.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of mayhem — as you might expect — but his latest “mission” has placed some restrictions on him, among which is a version of the biblical fifth commandment: don’t kill anyone on my behalf. Trust me; if you were in X’s Original S.W.A.T.s and knew what had happened, you’d be hard-pressed to obey that command.

Please Tell Me This Isn't the Last Orphan!

The Last Orphan - Greg Hurwitz

It’s not normal for Evan Smoak, otherwise known as Orphan X, to find himself shackled to a bench in a prisoner transport. Truth be told, it took a large, well-coordinated, and very well-trained team of America’s finest to land him in this predicament. In fact, the only way that even worked is that X’s only chance to slip the trap would have been to gun down an innocent FBI agent… and he doesn’t do that to innocent people. That’s how he ended up talking to the person who put the whole capture operation in motion, Victoria Donahue-Carr. You’d think the POTUS would be more grateful, given that X is essentially the only reason she’s sitting in the oval office.

So Much Can Happen in Just Two Nights in Lisbon.

 Two Nights in Lisbon - Chris Pavone

After reading the first pages of Chris Pavone’s latest, Two Nights in Lisbon, a more skeptical reader might feel that buzz somewhere deep of their brain that suggests, “There’s something off about this.” I know I did… but once I found myself immersed in the urgency of Ariel Pryce’s desperate search for the husband who walked out of their Portuguese hotel and disappeared into the morning sunlight, I forgot about it. Mostly.

A frantic Ariel reaches out to the Lisbon police and the American embassy, certain that her husband has been kidnapped. Despite police assurances that her (much younger) husband has probably just gone on for drugs or hooked up with one of the many beauties Lisbon boasts, Ariel is sure that he’s been taken. A demand for three million euros’ ransom makes her point.

This Time, Death Rode a Dark Horse

Dark Horse - Gregg Hurwitz

It’s every parent’s worst nightmare… Aragon Urrea came home from an errand and found his 18-year-old daughter Angelina gone. Kidnapped by a business rival, sort of; but when that rival is the head of the most brutal narcotics cartel in northern Mexico, you cannot call the Feds. What’s a father to do? Urrea picked up the phone and dialed 1-800-NOWHERE… and Evan Smoak answered with that signature phrase, “Do you need my help?”

Brennan's New Series Starts with a Dud

The Third to Die - Allison Brennan

When you read at least fifty mystery or thriller novels a year, you can’t always depend on a half-dozen or so favorite authors to have a new release ready for you when you finish your latest. As a consequence, I read a lot of novels written by authors whose work, to be kind, I will probably not seek out again in the future. The latest in my string of one-and-dones is Allison Brennan, who released The Third to Die – Quinn & Costa Thriller Book 1 last year. Given the pace of Brennan’s work, she’s probably already finished number four. Here’s the plot in about 115 words:

Agent Zero - Disengage Disbelief Before Reading

Agent Zero - Jack Mars

I don’t review a lot of books these days, although I still power through about three books a week. Every once in a while, though, I get the urge to spit out a few hundred words to share my opinion of some thing I’ve just finished. Sometimes it’s because the book is so good – Peter Heller’s The Dog Stars or Alexandra Oliva’s The Last One come to mind. On the other hand. Some books are just plain lousy, and I get a kick out of lambasting them. There’s the third option, too: the book’s neither great not execrable, but… something about it tells me to sit down and write. That’s what happened with Agent Zero, the first book in a series by some guy who uses the pseudonym Jack Mars.

Hey There, Nowhere Man: Yo Mama!

 Prodigal Son - Gregg Hurwitz

Evan Smoak thought he’d retired from the hero business; or at least that was the deal he’d made to stay out of a federal prison. But when you get a phone call from someone claiming to be the mother you’d never met, you’re at least curious… maybe a little obsessed. The woman in question had a job for The Nowhere Man (Evan’s last “career” before retiring): find and protect Andrew Duran, a down-on-his-luck impound lot attendant who’d had the misfortune of witnessing the murder of a client. Perhaps out of boredom, Evan took up the hunt.

Rogue DEA Agents, Sicarios, and Zetas... Oh, My

Make Them Cry - Smith Henderson and Jon Marc Smith

If you like your protagonists flawed, then Make Them Cry is gonna be right up your alley. With the possible exception of a couple of innocent bystanders (who might not be all that innocent after all), not one character in this novel has more redeeming qualities than flaws. That negative balance definitely includes Diane Harbaugh, grifter’s daughter turned ASUA turned DEA agent; a woman with a penchant for playing fast and loose with whatever rules get in her way. It’s that penchant that already has her in hot water with her agency when she goes rogue in an attempt to bring in a cartel lieutenant in the Mexican coastal town of Tampico. Ultimately, she finds herself pitted against a sicario whose hobby is reading sword-and-sorcery fantasy and somehow in debt to Carver, a sexy ex-CIA agent who’s also gone rogue in his own way.

Who Is Killing Charlie Grant's BFFs?

Catch Me - Lisa Gardner

Boston Homicide's D. D. Warren is not about to let a case of the postpartum blues slow her down, no, not one step. But this latest case is… just plain weird. Oh, one more dead pedophile is nothing new; but the woman she meets at the murder scene, a woman who's come to see the cop she expects to investigate her own murder? Now, there's a first.

Charlie Grant's two BFFs were murdered exactly one year apart on January 21st, both cases still unsolved. With just a few days left before she expects to meet her own death on that wintry date, Charlie's gone underground in Beantown. She's turned herself into a lean, mean, fighting machine and armed herself for bear - but she's still certain she knows what date will be carved to the right of the dash on her tombstone. That's when she comes on Warren's radar; not because she seems afraid but she seems somehow… guilty.

The Apocalypse is Coming, and It Wants Your Brain

World War Z - Max Brooks

It's been said that "armies prepare to fight the war they just finished," which seems borne out by recent history: WWII vs. Korea; Korea vs. Vietnam; Vietnam vs. the "War on Terror"... perhaps the military mind can only learn the hard way. We can forgive the military this time, though, for there was never a way to prepare, at least not for a war like World War Z. After all, how can you prepare for an enemy that knows no fear? for an enemy that can't feel pain? for an enemy that can't die, because he's already dead?  That's the story of World War Z, where "Z" is for "Zombie."

Maybe the Accounting is Right, but the Plot? Fuhgeddaboudit...

Exit Strategy - Colleen Cross

Every day a list of books shows up in my email inbox from a place called BookBub. Most of these ebooks are available at fire sale prices; a couple a week are even free. I have to admit that I try to avoid any titles accompanies by a blurb bragging about the number of five-star reviews at GoodReads, but every once in a while I pick up one of the freebies just to see if the rest of the series is worth buying (or borrowing from the library).

That’s why I have a copy of Exit Strategy, subtitled “Katerina Carter Fraud Thriller Series 1”: I got it free. And I’m here to tell you, it was worth every penny…

Storey’s Debut Novel Filled with Blood and Tropes

Nothing Short of Dying - Erik Storey

Cliché number 1: Clyde Barr, who left his western Colorado home after a horrendous youth to “see the world,” became a mercenary. Unlike most, he (claims he) chose the good side of his fights, protecting the little guys. Nevertheless, he apparently perfected his skills: Barr’s a stone killer. Just sprung from a Mexican jail, he stops in his home town to reach out to the only one of his three sisters he still talks to, only to find that Jen has been taken by an unnamed “big guy” to help him with some crime, after which she’ll be “discarded like a used needle.”

Reacher Reaches Nineteen, a Personal Milestone but Still Mediocre

Personal: A Jack Reacher Novel - Lee Childs

Considering the fact that I read dozens of novels every year, lots of them of the “no socially-redeeming qualities” variety, you might think that I had already devoured all eighteen of the Jack Reacher novels penned by Lee Childs. You’d be wrong: before Personal, the nineteenth in the series, my only exposure to Childs’ protagonist had been the Tom Cruise movie from 2012 which I’ve (accidentally) seen twice. Be that as it may, people have always sad that the novels in the series aren’t so interrelated that you have to read them in order, so I bit on Personal. I gotta say, the immense popularity of the series is a little puzzling to me…

Jack Reacher is, as usual, riding a bus somewhere when he spots the advertisement asking him to phone an old buddy. He makes the call, and within hours is whisked to a supersecret CIA billet on the opposite coast headed by an old acquaintance. There he learns that someone has hired a freelance sniper to put a bullet in the brain of one (or more) of the G-8 attendees, and the meeting in London is mere days away. Reacher’s needed because, at least in theory, he knows the mind of one of the four probably sniper candidates, having put him in jail fifteen years ago. John Kott is now free, and in the wind.

Reacher and his CIA minder, a tasty morsel named Casey Nice, head to Paris and then London in search of Kott. People die, Reacher does whatever it is that Reacher always does, and the evil plot underneath it all is exposed.

Par for the course for Reacher, I’m told.

Roo Jones is the Dark-Skinned James Bond: Hurricane Fever

Hurricane Fever - Tobias Buckell

Prudence “Roo” Jones returned to his old stomping grounds after he retired, sinking a chunk of a tidy nest egg into a spiffy catamaran so he could tour the Caribbean at will. He took his only living kin, his nephew Delroy, under his wing and settled down. Roo figured that he could live out his days sailing from island to island, dodging the omnipresent hurricanes that batter the slowly drowning landscape, occasionally ducking into a harbor to tip a Red Stripe with friends and replenish his larder.

That was before he got the mysterious phone call from his old running buddy Zee, a message that started by telling him, “…if you’re getting this message from me, it means I’m dead.” Yeah: dead. In another life he and Zee had done important work, and Roo knew without having to ask that his friend had died for something just as important. That’s why he did what the voice message asked; and that’s how the former Caribbean Intelligence Group operative’s once-quiet retirement turned upside down.

Not only was there a damned good reason, somebody made it personal…

For Once it's not the Catholic Church: Steve Berry's Latest Potboiler Picks on the Mormons

The Lincoln Myth - Steve Berry

After three unsuccessful tries, struggling author Dan Brown cracked the NYT bestseller lists with The Da Vinci Code in 2003 – and by 2005 his previous novels had also gone viral, in the literary sense. Most critics of a literary bent considered tdVC to be little more than a potboiler, but there’s no denying that Brown managed to hit on the magical formula that sells books like hotcakes. And that’s why a bazillion other books have been written that attempt to follow the magic formula. 

The elements of Brown’s formula are: a mystical religious relic, a centuries-old conspiracy, a larger-than-life hero, a madman (preferably filthy rich), a beautiful woman, and skein of puzzles. 

Salt Lake Temple (credit: Entheta,
wikimedia commons)

So far, Steve Berry has written at least nine attempts to recapture Brown’s formula. He’s sold a lot of books in the process, but the sad truth is that while Brown’s efforts are at least pedestrian, Berry’s Cotton Malone series (The Alexandria Link, The Templar Legacy) can’t even reach that level. Neither can The Lincoln Myth, for that matter…

Cotton Malone may have retired, but his old boss still has the big guy on speed dial. That’s how he's gotten entangled in the web of intrigue involving a 160-year-old letter between Abraham Lincoln (that Lincoln, the 16th PoTUS) and Brigham Young (that Young, a prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints – the Mormons). Seems there’s a cabal of Mormon fundamentalists who want the letter, long hidden, and – more to the point – a secret addendum to the U. S. Constitution that will supposedly allow states to secede at will.

Sparkling Debut Novel from Drew Chapman: "The Ascendant"

The Ascendant - Drew Chapman

Meet Garrett Reilly, happa twenty-something from Long Beach. Garrett possesses a rare talent; the ability to see patterns in wildly disparate data. Combined with a near-eidetic memory, that talent makes him a powerful force in his current job of Wall Street market analyst. He’s also an arrogant sonuvabitch with a chip on his shoulder the size of Nevada.

Four Stars at Amazon? What Have Those People Been Smoking!? David Wellington, "Chimera"

1.5 Stars out of 5: Oops!

You really, really want to feel good for Captain Jim Chapel. After all, he's a bona fide hero, having returned from duty in one of our dirty little wars minus his left arm, but he's still in his country's service. You want to feel proud for him… though it's a little hard since he still occasionally wallows in self-pity.

That seems about to change, though, when Chapel is tapped for a super-secret mission by the head of his employer, the DIA (an admiral, not some weenie general). It seems a handful of super-dangerous… criminals? detainees? experiments? have escaped from a super-secret compound hidden deep in the Poconos (is it possible to hide anything in the Poconos? I mean, really…) Now these indefatigable balls of inchoate rage have fanned out across the country looking for a list of eight people. Never mind for now how the DoD (or was it the CIA) got their paws on the list of names.

Joe Hill, NOS4A2 -- All I Want for Christmas is Three Rows of Teeth

Victoria "Vic" McQueen discovered she had an unusual talent at the ripe old age of eight, discovered it the first time she rode her too-large bicycle through that abandoned covered bridge in Haverhill, Massachusetts, her home town. What she discovered when she popped out the other end of the bridge wasn't the opposite bank of the Merrimack River -- it was the place where her mother had lost her favorite bracelet that same morning. Vic, she learned, had a talent for finding, and that Shorter Way Bridge was her route from lost to found.

Other people had their own talents and their own means for short-circuiting the journey from then to now; now to then. When she was 13, Vic met another one; Here, Iowa, librarian Maggie Leigh; whose supernatural Scrabble tiles foretold Vic's future... "THE BRAT COULD FIND THE WRAITH." The Wraith?

Marcus Sakey, "The Amateurs": This is a Job for Professionals

The Amateurs by Marcus Sakey

Imagine that you’re thirty-something, stuck in a dead-end job, and not one of the lofty dreams of youth has come true. If someone came to you and proposed a scheme that could change your life, what would your answer be? Even if it meant breaking the law? The Thursday Night Drinking Club answered, “Yes.”

The Club is Alex, a bartender; Mitch, invisible doorman at a swanky hotel; Jenn, a travel agent (do they even still have those in the era of the internet?); and Ian, the club’s one semi-success – a trader who hasn’t grabbed the brass ring in years. Every Thursday the friends meet at the restaurant where Alex tends bar; meet perhaps mostly because misery loves company. Their favorite drinking game is one they call “Ready-Go”; basically a form of “what if?” When one night Alex’s question is, “What would you do if you had a share of a quarter-million dollars?” the question is more pertinent than most: Alex knows where there is a quarter mil just ready to be picked up. The problem is that to get the money, the four will have to steal it. That should be no problem: they’re smarter than the average crook, after all. And so a pact is made, a foolproof plan is formed, and the Thursday Night Drinking Club set themselves up to embark on a life of crime.

Bobbie Burns was right: even the best-laid plans often go awry.

Everything begins according to plan, but then things begin to go wrong. Not just a little wrong, but horribly wrong – and a man lying dead in the alley behind the restaurant isn’t even the worst of their problems. You see, the friends may be smart, but they are definitely amateurs and they make an amateur mistake: they don’t realize who they’re dealing with. And the four are dealing with people who are a lot, lot worse then they’d ever expected…

Chicago author Marcus Sakey seems to be building a literary career out of “what if” scenarios himself. The Amateurs begins slowly, seeming at first glance little more than a by-the-numbers thriller with the quartet of amateur crooks caught in the inevitable squeeze between the cops investigating a crime and real crooks wanting their booty back. If that were the case, the plot of The Amateurs would play out with but slight differences from Sakey’s previous novel, Good People. That was, in fact, my first impression of the novel. In the earlier tale, however, Tom and Anna Reed (the titular “good” people) find themselves forced to make tough decisions that will affect their lives. The four friends in The Amateurs find themselves in much, much deeper doodoo. What the four of them do, what the four of them decide, will affect their lives and the lives of those they love – and that’s only for starters: what the four of them finally do, what the four of them finally decide, will effect millions of lives.

In that, Marcus Sakey has raised his new novel far beyond some simple by-the-numbers thriller – not that The Amateurs isn’t a first-rate thriller, because it certainly is. More than just write a crime novel, however, Sakey has crafted a study into the psychology of how ordinary people react under extraordinary circumstances. The Amateurs goes even further: it is ultimately a study of how a seemingly ordinary person can give his life meaning.