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The Deceived by Brett Battles (view source)
Revision as of 15:27, 4 September 2020
, 15:27, 4 September 2020no edit summary
Quinn is a Cleaner. His job is to dispose of inconvenient evidence. Specifically, his job is to dispose of inconvenient corpses, and whatever trail they might have left behind them. He has undergone a long and rigorous apprenticeship to achieve this position, and now has an apprentice of his own. It might be an ignoble calling, but don't for a second assume that it is entirely without the law.
Ah, well, yes. Scrap that. It might always be, technically, outside of the acknowledged legal framework, but that doesn't mean that the forces of law and order and the defenders of the free world don't call upon his services. For what he might consider his probationary period, before he went freelance, Quinn was directly employed by one such agency, and he had to fight to get taken off their 'active' list.
Now he works purely for money. And for the right to call his decisions his own.
''The Deceived'' is a fairly straightforward action thriller. It has all of the right ingredients. It starts with a body, a bad guy and a good guy. The good guy isn't strictly legal. The bad guy isn't strictly the point.
It has the young protégé: a counterpoint to the expertise of the older hand – needed to ask the dumb questions the reader needs to be asked, but smart in ways that the leader isn't in order to justify his existence.
It has the gorgeous street-smart exotic, intelligent, fast-fighting, comms-whizz female side-kick, who might or might not provide the love interest if called upon to fall into a cliché clinch.
The only questions to be answered are: who killed Markoff and why, and can Quinn get to Jenny to save her, before the suits who are shooting at him and tracking her do so? And what is the Congressman's role in all this?
It is pure escapist nonsense, and none the worse for it. If you like your heroes on the shady side, your action non-stop, a good dose of technological wizardry, but the battles to be won by the man who can wield his gun the quickest…or the smartest. You'll like this.
Simple. Well-crafted. And fun to read. A proper beach book.
Our thanks to FMcM on behalf of Preface/Random House for sending a copy to Bookbag.
If this type of book appeals then we think that you might also enjoy [[Hidden by Katy Gardner]]. We also have a review of [[The Unwanted by Brett Battles]].
{{toptentext|list=Top Ten Beach Reads For Boys}}