When a teenage girl witnesses a carjacking gone bad, she is marked for death by a crime boss with no apparent motive. A black lawyer and a white enforcer with an unlikely history forge an uneasy alliance to protect the girl from a hit man with an agenda of his own.Paul Elliott – lawyer and close friend of the witness’s family – begins counseling them and becomes entangled in the murder plot.As … plot.
As the long-simmering feud between Rico – the white enforcer – and the hitman John D’Angelo reaches boiling point, bodies start to pile up in rapid succession… and old scores will be settled.
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A Hit Man with A Huge Heart
The life and times befitting a hit man continue in this second story in this thriller mystery of criminal life. I felt both empathy and disgust for Rico and the way he has chosen to carry out his life. Disgust for his work and his reasoning for staying in such an occupation. Empathy for this killer who may not realize how deeply he loves and cares for Jean. Duncan has portrayed these characters magnificently, delving into human emotion and attributing deep feelings to each. In the first story, Pigeon Blood Red, Rico will allow no harm to Jean, the one person he can trust, and there are no others in his line of work. Yet, he will be severely tested again in The Last Straw. Rico is cunning and brutal, but with Jean, he is patient and sympathetic.
Duncan has created characters we both love and hate. In the case of Rico, I experience both of those emotions. Duncan shows us, through his impeccable writing skills, that he has a great understanding of human nature and a character’s mind set, no matter the situation, no matter the characters’ parts in the story.
Ed Duncan’s writing is concise and to the point, allowing shocking twists upon twists to unfold and take us by surprise. This is great writing, great storytelling, as if writing about actual occurrences. That is the mark of a good writer. I’ll be reading Rico Stays, which I understand is the 3rd exciting story in the series. If you like fast moving mysteries that keep you glued, read this author.
It takes a lot of time and effort to write a book. Sometimes when a book is finished you are not done with the characters or the connections between them. In this story Rico, a hired gunman, thug, renews contact with Paul Elliott, a lawyer who saved Rico’s life. I won’t tell you more about the connection or the story. Read it for yourself, for me to give you details would spoil your read. The characters are real in the sense the author fleshes them out. The story line is a bit obscure but the characters hold it together. Because of what I perceived as the weakness of the story this is a tenuous five star rating. Even with a difficult story the read was fast and enjoyable because of the characters. Every author has a story where his characters rescue the tale from whatever it may lack. This is one of those, to this reviewer.
*3 Stars*
ARC kindly received in exchange for an honest review.
This is the second book in this series, and as such we have some familiar main characters. Mainly Rico, Paul and Evelyn. the story is told in such a way, that there are multiple things unfolding at once, and you’re left trying to work out how/where, or if they are connected.
I think the story skips between the different characters a little too much, because at times I had to work to remember who and what was going on. Mostly this was at the start of the book though.
There are quite a few twists and turns in this story, between the lawyer character side, and the mobster side. Things I definitely didn’t see coming. Whilst this writing style is probably not entirely for me, there are a lot of things that I think other readers who are more into these kinds of stories will enjoy. I did like that we got to see more of Rico and he seems to be growing more of a conscience. Paul is also an interesting character, and we learnt a bit more about him in this one too.
It would be interesting to see where Duncan takes these characters from here.