Monday 7 November 2011

The Abomination Assignment (The Bowin Novels), by Lee Holz:

Covert government assassin, Dr Thomas Bowin, is also a reputed neuroscientist in his official “day job”. He’s unassuming and unremarkable to those who see him and don’t know him. However, that’s often how his would-be killers underestimate him. When the heat of the moment demands deadly force, Tom Bowin is fast and lethal. He leads a double-life, and is cold, exacting and patient in his work when sanctioned to find and kill terrorists, calculating all the risks to himself in order to get the job done as swift and clean as possible and then slip away undetected. He’s good at what he does, too. A real professional, deadly with weapons and at hand-to-hand combat, he makes his first murder in this story look like just another fatal mugging that could happen anywhere – a robbery gone bad.
What I enjoyed about this story was that it made me ask myself how many of these agents and operatives could be living among us, leading double-lives just like Tom Bowin, as they move through society, some of them working mundane jobs, the unassuming man next door who no one really gives a second look. Also, as Thomas Bowin – the contract killer of this story – justifies his actions to himself, what effect does it have on him as a human being as he leads a solitary existence, reflecting on his propose and loneliness? It seems to me that they are detached because that’s exactly the way they need to be in order to do what they have to do.
I have read many books of the same genre, but The Abomination Assignment had me engrossed and unable to anticipate the ended.
The story is told with a good, even pace and kept me engrossed from start to finish.
James Bond is for adolescents. Those stories are fine in a fun, lightweight way, but thrillers like The Abomination Assignment offer readers a realistic, gritty view of the world where detached and ruthless men are needed in the fight against terrorism, in order to stop fanatics who are prepared to slaughter countless innocent lives.
Recommended to readers who enjoy a detailed and intriguing adventure thriller.

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