Wicked Game - Adam Chase - Guest book review

Guest book review by Penny Waugh

Hex, aka Joshua Thane, is a personable, successful and meticulous hired assassin, who has not put a foot wrong in any of his assignments until one day he is hired to kill a woman scientist. He has never questioned why any of these people should be killed but this case, where he finds the target already dead and her young son in the house, throws him completely off balance.

Hex becomes that unlikely creature, a hired assassin with a conscience. The case worries him deeply and he starts to dig into it, finding out things that only worry him further. Contacts he goes to for information start to turn up dead, and an uneasy  assocation with the British undercover services leads to horrifying discoveries, attempts on his own life and a desperate rush to save the world from a genetic disaster.

This is an excellent thriller. The plot is fast moving, with fascinating detail. Hex is a complicated character and a likable one. Witness to his own mother's murder as a teenager, taught his trade by a rogue Zionist, he is dedicated to what he does, and when that puts him on the side of the less bad (one can hardly say good) he responds wholeheartedly. He is not infallible and he does tend to act first and think later, but he has panache, wit and a deep desire to get at the truth, at whatever cost to himself.

His spiky relationship with McCallen, the female British agent, whose main worry for a long time seems to be keeping her job, is a delight as power shifts back and forth together with a certain amount of sexual tension. The writing is witty and involving, the denoument slightly OTT, but when are they not?

If you relish a cracking good thriller with believable people I can recommend this heartily. Hope the next in the series won't be long in coming.

Reviewed by Penny Waugh - many thanks to Penny for reading and reviewing Wicked Game for The Little Reader Library

Published by Cutting Edge Press

Find the author on twitter @thrillerchase and visit the author's website here