“Gridlock” by Sean Black (Bantam)

A stalker escalating to murder and the seedy side of LA’s entertainment industry

Adult movie actress, Raven Lane, is one of the most lusted after women in California, with millions of fans to prove it. But none seem to be more dedicated in their pursuit of her than the murderous stalker who is carving a demonic swathe across the streets of Los Angeles in an apparent bid to get her attention.

Fearing for her life, and with the LAPD seemingly unable to protect her, Raven turns to elite bodyguard, Ryan Lock for help. But with suspicion settling on Raven herself, Lock finds himself drawn into a deadly web of deceit and seduction.

This is the third novel featuring Ryan Lock – former Royal Marines investigator turned personal protection expert. As with Black’s previous two novels (Lockdown and Deadlock), Gridlock is a fast-paced thriller with a sympathetic protagonist and intriguing case to unravel. It lived up to my expectations, and Black continues to show growth and improvement in all aspects of his writing.

An interview with SEAN BLACK

Last year, I was perusing the shelves in my local bookstore, and I came across Sean Black’s debut, Lockdown. It was a great find, as I ended up reading it in just a couple of sittings, much to the annoyance of Emma, who I was visiting at the time. Very soon after, Deadlock was published and I devoured that one, too. Black’s thrillers struck me as very finely-written, quick-paced thrillers that offer a shot in the arm of action and suspense. In other words, just what I look for in a thriller.

I’ve been lucky enough to get a hold of an early copy of Gridlock, the third novel focussing on his lead character Ryan Lock, bodyguard for hire, and all-round tough guy. In advance of my review of the book, and it’s publication, Black was kind enough to answer some questions about his books, writing, and what’s to come.

Best Book-Week EVER…?

Quite probably. This week I have received (and bought) perhaps the most number of Highly Anticipated books than any week previously. Am I gloating by writing about it here? Well, maybe a little bit, but I do also want to take advantage of the opportunity to tell everyone a little bit about these books that are coming out in the near future. So, let’s start first with a photo of The Big Pile O’ Exciting Books:

Here’s why we should be excited about them…

[Please Note: Some of these novels are sequels, so there may be some spoilers in synopses.]

“Deadlock”, by Sean Black (Bantam)

A deadly mission uncovers a deadlier plot to sow the seeds of terror and anarchy in America.

The notorious California supermax State Prison at Pelican Bay houses three and a half thousand of America’s most dangerous prisoners. Three thousand, four hundred and ninety nine of them want the remaining inmate dead. Your job is to keep him alive until he testifies...

Elite bodyguard Ryan Lock and his trusted friend, Ty Johnson, have just become convicted felons, sentenced to twenty years in Pelican Bay. Or at least that’s what the FBI and the United States Justice Department want everyone to believe.

Their mission should be straightforward: to keep one man alive for one week. But the inmate, Frank ‘Reaper’ Hays, is a founding member of the white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood prison gang, who’s about to give evidence against members of his own gang for the brutal slaying of an undercover ATF agent and his family. And just to make an already trying job next to impossible, Hays point blank refuses to go into protective custody. In a world dominated by violent gangs where alliances are constantly shifting and no one can be trusted, Lock knows that he faces the toughest assignment of his career — just to stay alive...

The second outing for Ryan Lock – all-round hero and bodyguard extraordinaire – sees him taking on a lethal job protecting the leader of a white supremacist prison gang. The job is only meant to last five days, but all plans have a tendency to fall off the rails, and this is no exception. Navigating the internal race-politics that characterise life in Pelican Bay is tough work, and Ryan and Ty don’t come away unscathed. After their job is done, they realise the real plot behind Reaper’s testimony, and eventually the deadly plans of a violent fringe group emerge, and Ryan must do everything in his power to prevent it.

Deadlock came at just the right time for me: I had recently watched The Shawshank Redemption and the TV series Prison Break, so the prison and escape premise appealed (of course, the more I read, the more it became clear that the job in Pelican Bay was just the tip of the iceberg). Also, because of other recent reading (No Angel) and viewing material (Sons of Anarchy), America’s scary fringe-criminals hold a certain peculiar fascination for me. So, it was a timely novel.

The novel has a very short preamble – within a few pages, Lock and Ty are entering the prison. This was a very good decision – Black has kept exposition and repeating the events of Lock Down to a bare minimum, allowing new readers to feel at home quickly, and adding nothing that might slow the exhilarating pace of the novel. In Deadlock, Black’s writing is even slicker than before, and I blitzed my way through this novel in just two sittings – even quicker than Lock Down, which was a pleasant surprise. This, in truth, is Black’s main skill – he has a screenwriter’s gift of and appreciation for pacing, feeding the reader just enough to keep them reading from beginning to end. It’s engrossing, so stripped and spare is his prose style.

The realism remains in his characters, and once again every one of them feels real and considered. The white supremacists aren’t cartoony – rather, they are pretty damn scary. If real neo-Nazis are this clever and well-organised, then America is looking like a pretty scary place. There’s a little less humour in this novel, which matches the grim situations Ryan and Ty find themselves in. There is, however, a great scene that distils everyone’s frustrations with US Transport Security Agency ‘protocols’ at airports, and Lock handles it in the way I’m sure everyone wishes they could. In an example of Black’s wry characterisation, here’s how he describes the Aryan Brotherhood’s leadership:

“They looked like the senior members of a Deadwood appreciation society who'd taken the construction of their respective personas just a little too seriously.”

Ryan Lock isn’t quite as perfect as he was made out to be in Lock Down, which was a blessing – he came across a little too sanctimonious and all-American in his debut. Carrie, on the other hand, was a disappointment, and perhaps the weakest character in the novel (odd, as she seemed well-constructed – if peripheral – in Lock Down). Their relationship feels a little strained, as if it was used to make Lock appear more human – when, in fact, his internal monologue, his actions, and his general world-view make him appear perfectly human.

It’s difficult to describe or locate this novel within the thriller genre without coming across condescending or derogatory. In many ways, Deadlock could be described as a “disposable thriller” or an “airport thriller” – it’ll keep you reading through a flight or long train ride, but won’t last much more than that. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – not every novel needs to be big enough to double as a weighty doorstop (indeed, nowadays it’s not common to find a crime thriller that nears 400 pages). For the author’s purposes, however, he has done an excellent job of streamlining his novel for maximum impact. I imagine this is almost how a novelisation of a series of 24 might read: there’s a prison break, a manhunt, a mole, and a violent ending.

Regardless of what label you wish to put on it, Deadlock entertained me from start to finish; the tension and the stakes are higher, and it’s very well written. If you’re looking for a quick, entertaining, action-oriented read, then Deadlock is a great candidate.

For Fans of: Joseph Finder, Mike Lawson, Vince Flynn, Andrew Grant, Lee Child, Chris Ryan, Kyle Mills, James Patterson, Harlan Coben

“Lock Down”, by Sean Black (Bantam)

Introducing Ryan Lock: Bodyguard, problem-solver, all-round hard man

It may be Christmas in New York, but for ex-military bodyguard Ryan Lock it’s business as usual.

His mission: to protect the CEO of America’s largest pharmaceutical company. But, when an apparently botched assassination attempt goes wrong, leaving bodies littering the streets of midtown Manhattan, Lock is drawn into a complex web of intrigue.

Lock’s search for the truth takes him from the rooftops of a New York skyscraper to a heavily fortified warehouse on the Hudson where he uncovers an explosive secret.

As the clock ticks towards midnight on New Year’s Eve, all routes into and out of Manhattan are sealed, and Lock realizes that not only is his own life in terrible danger but so are the lives of millions of others...

Introducing a new action hero to a genre growing exponentially in popularity and number, Lock Down is a solid debut. Ryan Lock, the hero in question, is working for Meditech, a stereotypical medical corporation. The company is hounded by animal rights protestors and activists – from public demonstrations in front of their Manhattan offices, to more violent activities, the activists have been a considerable thorn in Meditech’s side for some time.

Two seemingly unconnected crimes – the apparently botched assassination attempt mentioned in the synopsis, and also the kidnap of a former employee’s son – Ryan Lock’s life is tipped upside down as he takes it upon himself to investigate the boy’s disappearance. As he delves deeper into the case, he realises that there was more to the kidnapping than a ransom grab, and he soon finds himself fighting for his life. He is aided in his mission by Ty Johnson, a former marine who recruited Lock out of the British military and into private security; and Carrie, a beautiful journalist and former love-interest of Lock’s.

In reality, Lock Down is almost two novels – the kidnap and rescue, which is dealt with in the first half of the novel; followed by the conspiracy-gone-wrong behind the kidnapping and the deadly repercussions of Lock’s investigation. It works well, but around halfway, the plot’s momentum faltered a little. It’s clear that a lot of this is aimed at introducing us fully to Lock, and in this the novel succeeds very well – he’s a likeable character, tough and focussed, but not above normal human emotion and weakness (as a simple example, his scenes with Angel, a rescued dog, are great and should make you chuckle – as well as want a dog…). In this respect, we get a little more than some other fictional action heroes, who sometimes seem to be written purely to create a “I’m considerably tougher than thou” superman. Lock is human, fallible, and an interesting protagonist.

Black writes in very pacey prose - you’ll whizz through the pages of Lock Down (in my first sitting, around lunch, I burned through 74 pages). The main character is likeable, and definitely in the mould of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp, and Kyle Mills’s Mark Beamon. As entertainment, this works as a thoroughly enjoyable novel.

I would hesitate to say this novel is cliché, but it was somewhat predictable – no doubt fans of the genre will recognise some of the above description from innumerable other action-adventure series and thrillers. From the internal struggles and company politics at Meditech, to Lock’s idealised-action-man nature, Black is not reinventing the wheel here, but his take on the genre is very confident and assured for a debut author.

The novel didn’t quite meet the level of Flynn’s or Mills’s earlier novels (which just seem to delve deeper and with more confidence, and just feel meatier in terms of plot and character), though many similar themes are shared and equally well done. I would say this is certainly better than James Patterson’s recent output, but not yet on the same level as Flynn’s novels. I found it easier to get into Lock Down than Andrew Grant’s debut, Even.

On the strength of this novel, I would say Black was akin to an apprentice thriller writer: his work is of great quality, near-indistinguishable from the ‘masters’ in content and themes, but under the surface it’s just not quite of the same quality. For example, the antagonists of the novel are a little predictable and too-familiar from other thrillers (novels and movies), this meant they lacked the menace of some antagonists we’ve come to read about – such as Kyle Craig, Alex Cross’s nemesis from the earlier James Patterson novels. It’s clear that the bulk of Black’s energies went into making Ryan Lock as three-dimensional and realistic as possible, at the unintended expense of fully rounding out the bad-guys and peripheral characters.

We’ll see if the author managed to raise his game with Dead Lock, but I’m confident that he has (the premise is very cool). Lock Down is a solid debut novel, and one that reads better than some established authors.

Definitely an author to watch, I will certainly be reading all of the future Ryan Lock novels – may there be many more to come.

Also try: Vince Flynn, Kyle Mills, Lee Child, Andrew Grant, Brett Battles, Alex Berenson, Chris Ryan, James Patterson, Joseph Finder, Jeff Abbott

Incoming! (#2 of 2)

Ok, here’s the second round up of recent acquisitions, and they just happen to be the ones I’m most excited about:

Chris Wooding, “The Black Lung Captain” (Gollancz)

The Ketty Jay Flies again!

Darian Frey is down on his luck. He can barely keep his squabbling crew fed and his rickety aircraft in the sky. Even the simplest robberies seem to go wrong. It’s getting so a man can’t make a dishonest living any more.

Enter Captain Grist. He’s heard about a crashed aircraft laden with the treasures of a lost civilisation, and he needs Frey’s help to get it. There’s only one problem: The craft is lying in the trackless heart of a remote island, populated by giant beasts and subhuman monsters. Dangerous, yes. Suicidal, perhaps.

Still, Frey’s never let common sense get in the way of a fortune before. But there’s something other than treasure on board that aircraft. Something that a lot of important people would kill for. And it’s going to take all of Frey’s considerable skill at lying, cheating and stealing if he wants to get his hands on it...

I really enjoyed Retribution Falls, so I was extremely happy when I received Black Lung Captain as a gift this weekend – the person who gave it to me has earned a near infinite number of Friend Points! I’m also reading it now (a quarter done), so the review will hopefully be up by the end of the week, Monday at the latest.

James Barclay, “Dawnthief” (Gollancz)

Book one of the Chronicles of the Raven

The Raven have fought together for years, six men carving out a living as swords for hire in the war that have torn Balaia apart, loyal only to themselves and their code. But when they agree to escort a Xesteskian mage on a secret mission they are pulled into a world of politics and ancients secrets.

For the first time the Raven cannot even trust their own strength and prowess, for the first time their code is in doubt. How is it that they are fighting for one of the most evil colleges of magic known? Searching for the secret location of Dawnthief; a spell that could end the world? Aiming not to destroy it but to cast it.

Thanks to Waterstone’s 3-for-2 on all paperbacks campaign – a most seductive campaign, if ever there was one – I finally managed to pick up the first book in this series. I’ve been hearing some good stuff about it, from readers on both sides of the pond, and as my commitment to reviewing “old” titles is genuine, I will be reading this relatively soon. If it’s any good, then I will probably review the rest of the series as well.

Sean Black, “Dead Lock” (Bantam)

A new action hero arrives on the scene

It may be Christmas in New York, but for ex-military bodyguard Ryan Lock it’s business as usual.

His mission: to protect the CEO of America’s largest pharmaceutical company. But, when an apparently botched assassination attempt goes wrong, leaving bodies littering the streets of midtown Manhattan, Lock is drawn into a complex web of intrigue.

Lock’s search for the truth takes him from the rooftops of a New York skyscraper to a heavily fortified warehouse on the Hudson where he uncovers an explosive secret.

As the clock ticks towards midnight on New Year’s Eve, all routes into and out of Manhattan are sealed, and Lock realizes that not only is his own life in terrible danger but so are the lives of millions of others...

I’ve been hovering around buying this book for a long time. When it finally was released in paperback – and after the second in the series, Lock Down, popped up on Amazon’s Vine newsletter – I decided to give Black’s novels a go. Given the good things I’ve heard, I’m confident the two novels will be pretty entertaining.

Sean Black, “Lock Down” (Bantam)

Outing #2 for action-man Ryan Lock

The notorious California supermax State Prison at Pelican Bay houses three and a half thousand of America’s most dangerous prisoners. Three thousand, four hundred and ninety nine of them want the remaining inmate dead. Your job is to keep him alive until he testifies...

Elite bodyguard Ryan Lock and his trusted friend, Ty Johnson, have just become convicted felons, sentenced to twenty years in Pelican Bay. Or at least that’s what the FBI and the United States Justice Department want everyone to believe.

Their mission should be straightforward: to keep one man alive for one week. But the inmate, Frank ‘Reaper’ Hays, is a founding member of the white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood prison gang, who’s about to give evidence against members of his own gang for the brutal slaying of an undercover ATF agent and his family. And just to make an already trying job next to impossible, Hays point blank refuses to go into protective custody. In a world dominated by violent gangs where alliances are constantly shifting and no one can be trusted, Lock knows that he faces the toughest assignment of his career — just to stay alive...

As mentioned above, I got this through Amazon.co.uk’s Vine Programme, and I rather like the sound of it. I recently watched The Shawshank Redemption, and I’m a big fan of Prison Break, so this just seemed to come through at the right time. Really looking forward to it, and as both of Black’s books look like relatively quick reads, I’ll get them done together and probably after I finish The Black Lung Captain (unless any surprise, too-exciting-to-wait releases come my way in the next couple of days).

Jilliane Hoffman, “Pretty Little Things” (Vanguard)

A Chilling Tale of Kidnap

“You should never put anything in writing or in pictures that you wouldn’t want to see or read on the front page of The New York Times,” Elaine Emerson’s mother preached on a regular basis.  Thirteen-year-old Lainey would naturally roll her eyes.

She hated her family and school, and except for her friend Molly, stayed pretty much to herself.  So when the cute boy she met in an online chat-room starting paying attention to her, Lainey was flattered.  When he wanted to see her photograph, she dressed up to look older, did her makeup and nails, and sent him a picture.  Then he wanted to meet.  How was she going to pull this off?

Special Agent Bobby Dees, head of the Crimes Against Children (CAC) Squad for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), is called in when Lainey Emerson is reported missing.  His job is to try to determine when a runaway is simply a runaway, or if something more sinister has taken place.  And as successful and acclaimed as he is, the ironic truth is that his own daughter is a missing runaway, who he has been unable to find.

Then the paintings start turning up.  Grotesquely distorted images of tortured teen-aged girls – each with enough detail to send law enforcement to the specific locations where their bodies are found.  The walls of the CAC office are filled with photos of missing teens – how many of them have fallen victim to this murderer?  Will one of them be Lainey Emerson?  Or Dees’ own daughter?  What kind of sick serial killer are they looking for?

This was kindly sent to my by Hoffman’s US publicist, and it will be my first novel by the author. It’s times like these that I really love book reviewing: in certain book-related instances, I must admit to being blind – there are just some authors I don’t try, if I have to buy the books myself. This has, I’ve come to realise, resulted in my missing out on a great deal of brilliant fiction (certainly in the fantasy and sci-fi genres, but also with thrillers, too). I’ve heard very good things about Hoffman’s writing, so I will get to this in the next round of thriller-reviewing (which will be pretty soon, I imagine).

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Some pretty cool stuff on there, so hopefully some interesting reviews coming up in the very near future.