Third Kill

Assassin On Assassin Action. In Las Vegas. This is a semi-weird (in a good way) mashup of a police procedural and a straight up shoot-em-up action thriller. On the police procedural side, one half of the “problem solving” team is an FBI agent with the usual FBI agent problems, plus at least a hint of a personal life. On the shoot-em-up action thriller side, the other half of the “problem solving” team is a former Royal Marine turned mercenary turned private assassin. Now, this team is tasked with tracking down and assassinating an assassin who has been let loose on the Las Vegas strip - and whoever is paying them. It is an intriguing premise in that it hasn't been covered a thousand times in a thousand variations of the exact same thing, and when this British author is focusing on things other than guns in his action, it is at minimum plausible and seemingly realistic. But his British blind spots shine through in his repeated - pretty much every time - use of “clip” when he should be using “magazine” to denote where in the gun the bullets are stored and what is replaced when you need more bullets. This is where having an American fan, particularly of the “uses guns semi-actively” sort, would come in handy in the proofreading process - a technique I've known even American authors who are still less familiar with guns to use to polish their texts before publication. And this is an ARC, so there is at least the possibility that this can be corrected in the month or so before publication - in the Kindle variant, at minimum. Still, a truly strong story such that other than this particular point, all other British to American linguistic differences are easily explained away as the one lead character being British himself. Very much recommended.