Monday, August 24, 2015

The Darkest Hour -- Tom Wood

Victor is a professional assassin, working in this instance for the CIA.  While in the process of carrying out an assignment, he finds that he's become the target, which wasn't in the plans at all.  He escapes, barely, and it turns out that another assassin, is a woman code-named Raven.  Victor believes that he has to kill her before she kills him.  As it turns out, things are even more complicated that Victor had thought, but to tell more about the plot would spoil things.

So I'll just say that if you like chase scenes, hand-to-hand combat, shootouts, explosions, tradecraft, and an interesting anti-hero, you'll find plenty of all of that here.  One extended chase scene (40 pages!) through a totally blacked-out New York City is the center piece of the book.  

Wood tells his story is straightforward prose that moves things along very quickly.  I hadn't read any of the previous books in the series, but that was no barrier to enjoying this one.  I read tons of spy fiction back in the early to middle '60s, and this book reminded me of some of the best of those stories.  It gets a high recommendation from me.  Check it out.

5 comments:

Matthew said...

The series has got good reviews at Spyguyandgals.com


http://www.spyguysandgals.com/sgShowChar.asp?id=1052

Unknown said...

I look forward to finding and reading the book, and I have enjoyed visiting and browsing through your fine blog. Now, though, may I be bold enough to change the subject and invite you to visit my blog? I am a retired federal government court reporter and paralegal, and I am an avid reader and reviewer of crime, detective, mystery, espionage, and historical fiction; the new edition of my blog, "Crimes in the Library," is where you will able to find regularly posted book reviews and commentary. Here is the address: http://crimesinthelibrary.blogspot.com/ I hope you will stop by and comment often. Thanks, Harper

mybillcrider said...

Thanks for the link, Free....

And thanks for the tip on the new blog, Harper.

Jeff Meyerson said...

Free's link.

Harper's blog.

Jeff

mybillcrider said...

Thanks, Jeff. Those links show up as hotlinks in my e-mail, so I never think about them not showing up like that in the comments.