The Anaïs Assignment (The Bowin Novels #3), by Lee Holz:

This third book in the Tom Bowin series of thrillers begins with a daylight kidnapping in Bethesda, Maryland. Teenager, Diego Mendoza, is snatched as he waits for his girlfriend, Anaïs Bowin, to join him outside their school. Anaïs witnesses the incident and barely manages to escape being kidnapped herself as the bullets fly in a taught first chapter. Like the first two Bowin thrillers, the plot weaves over different continents and locations (France, Morocco, Bahamas, Maine, Washington, Ireland) and holds the reader’s attention, as we learn about Anaïs’ shocking past, from her being rescued from imprisonment by a sexual predator, to being saved and adopted by Tom and Alice, coming to terms with the guilt of her past, and the discoveries she’s yet to make. With references to the first two books, there is careful attention to detail and character development, distinguishing this series from many of the run-of-the-mill intrigue stories, in particularly with its focus on human emotions and relationships. As hard-hitting as the scene in which one character in a boat cabin gets a bullet through the forehead, this is another well-written and entertaining story. I’m looking forward to what Tom Bowin’s fight with global terrorism will bring in the fourth book: The Hawala Assignment.

Impediments (Sonnet Trilogy #1) , by Lee Holz:

Opening with a celebration on June 5, 1970, Gerard Letrange, on his 35th birthday, sits in contemplative mood as he looks across Lake Geneva. He reflects on his life so far, as he prepares to attend a family get-together in his honor. He was born into a privileged and financially secure family in the banking sector. His friends are similarly affluent and their lives and interactions are recounted here over two decades, as their personalities are forged through a periodic series of dances, study, chess, swimming, tennis, discussions on the popular culture of the day, hiking, poker games, college fraternities, the passions, pains and desires of the transition from youth to adulthood, along with the imposed manners and etiquette of high-society living, where people drive Rolls Royce cars and smoke Montechristo cigars.
Will these friends and lovers remain as such as time progresses and they strive to secure lucrative careers and positions in the world?
What changes will settling into marriage and domesticity bring to them?
Will life hold up to their high standards and expectations?
This is the first book of a trilogy that sets the stage for the next two books in the series: Alteration and True Minds.
Although a gentler story than his first two hard-edged Tom Bowin thrillers (The Abomination Assignment and The Honeymoon Assignment), this is another story that is thoughtful and accomplished in detail, pans out over separate continents and takes in a variety of well developed characters in an interesting period drama. I admire authors who don’t get mired down in one particular pattern of writing and what has impressed me about this book is that author, Lee Holz, has tackled different genres with equal skill.

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.

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

Well-written sequel that is solid enough to stand alone from the first story and loses nothing of the punch of the original, as the reader follows covert government agent and assassin, Tom Bowin, accompanied by his wife, Alice, on a new mission.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading these intricately-plotted, cut-to-the-chase thrillers that put the reader right into the heat of the action from the very start of the story.