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A review by usbsticky
Eddie's Boy by Thomas Perry
5.0
My first time reading this author and I'm really glad I found him. Because this was a recommended new book, it happened to be #4 and the last one in the series but I'm glad to say that you don't have to read it in chronological order.
I liked this book right away because it was very easy to read and follow, I got into the story right away.
Spoilers below onwards:
The story is that Michael Shaeffer is a retired American hitman trying to stay under cover in the UK. But somehow he is discovered and 4 killers are sent to kill him. He kills them all instead and tries to escape the contract by flying to Australia. But unfortunately they track him down there too and he realizes that in order to fix the problem he will have to travel to America, find out who is trying to kill him and fix it at the source.
In the US, he finds that a mafia boss who is behind bars but up for parole has sent out the contract to kill him. Shaeffer deals with this by starting a gang war so the family has bigger problems to deal with, then he makes sure the boss gets parole and kills him too. Throughout the story we get a lot of flashbacks that explains the whole story of how he became a killer.
The whole book is a fast read and flows well despite the flashbacks. Some of the plot you will have to take with a grain of salt as you'll just have to believe Shaeffer is capable of taking down everyone the mafia boss sends against him (almost supernaturally). So basically the whole book is him gunning down everyone who gets in his way. It sounds like a brainless action movie script but it works. In a movie you would laugh at the hero blasting everyone to bits and not getting hit (like fighting against Star Wars stormtroopers) but in the book I cheered him on, with kind of a subconscious wish that you could blast your problems away like that too.
Despite all of the brainless action, I did find a literary gem in this book. It's the part where Shaeffer gazes at his aged wife (they're both in their 50's?) and she says she doesn't mind because he has also seen her when she was in her 20's and gorgeous and youthful and she knows that the woman he sees now includes the current version and also the young version, the then and now.
Kind of a weird point to make in an action book and apropos of nothing but I totally agree and also totally the way I feel about my SO but not only my SO but all my friends. The person they are now is also the person they were before. I love them for not just who they are now but who they were before and all the time we were together.
Anyhoo, I enjoyed this book and I'm reading #1 in the series now and I've also found a gem in that book which I will reveal in my review.
I liked this book right away because it was very easy to read and follow, I got into the story right away.
Spoilers below onwards:
The story is that Michael Shaeffer is a retired American hitman trying to stay under cover in the UK. But somehow he is discovered and 4 killers are sent to kill him. He kills them all instead and tries to escape the contract by flying to Australia. But unfortunately they track him down there too and he realizes that in order to fix the problem he will have to travel to America, find out who is trying to kill him and fix it at the source.
In the US, he finds that a mafia boss who is behind bars but up for parole has sent out the contract to kill him. Shaeffer deals with this by starting a gang war so the family has bigger problems to deal with, then he makes sure the boss gets parole and kills him too. Throughout the story we get a lot of flashbacks that explains the whole story of how he became a killer.
The whole book is a fast read and flows well despite the flashbacks. Some of the plot you will have to take with a grain of salt as you'll just have to believe Shaeffer is capable of taking down everyone the mafia boss sends against him (almost supernaturally). So basically the whole book is him gunning down everyone who gets in his way. It sounds like a brainless action movie script but it works. In a movie you would laugh at the hero blasting everyone to bits and not getting hit (like fighting against Star Wars stormtroopers) but in the book I cheered him on, with kind of a subconscious wish that you could blast your problems away like that too.
Despite all of the brainless action, I did find a literary gem in this book. It's the part where Shaeffer gazes at his aged wife (they're both in their 50's?) and she says she doesn't mind because he has also seen her when she was in her 20's and gorgeous and youthful and she knows that the woman he sees now includes the current version and also the young version, the then and now.
Kind of a weird point to make in an action book and apropos of nothing but I totally agree and also totally the way I feel about my SO but not only my SO but all my friends. The person they are now is also the person they were before. I love them for not just who they are now but who they were before and all the time we were together.
Anyhoo, I enjoyed this book and I'm reading #1 in the series now and I've also found a gem in that book which I will reveal in my review.