BOOK REVIEW: Lethal Strike (The Specialist, Book 2) by Zeke Mitchell

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Zeke Mitchell is part of the new wave of indie authors keeping the action-adventure genre alive, paying homage to the past while injecting it with fresh blood … and in Zeke’s books, there is a lot of blood. God bless him and pass the hollow-points.

Mitchell follows up his top notch debut novel (Kill Zone) with Lethal Strike, a hard-hitting sequel that once again features blistering autofire action reminiscent of those pulpy action paperbacks from the '80s and one-man-army movies like Rambo, Cobra, or Commando. In other words, you’re not going to find the answers to life’s deepest questions in this book … unless the answer is “kill ‘em all and let the bodies hit the floor.”

With its stripped-down, barebones plot and minimal dialogue, this sucker moves with the speed of a sniper's bullet and hits just as hard. Every ounce of flat and fluff has been carved away, leaving behind nothing but a rapid-fire guns ‘n’ guts bonanza. Matt Thorn, The Specialist, sets his crosshairs on an ISIS scumbag and blasts his way through a shooting gallery of villains (plus scorpions and cobras) on his way to execute the Big Bad Guy. Because in books like this, there’s always a Big Bad Guy and he must always reap his just desserts at the end of the hero’s gun … or blade … or rocket launcher … you get the idea.

Let's face it, the story is nothing more than a line on which to hang a series of mega-violent action sequences and that is exactly why you pick up a book like this. Those seeking anything other than gunfights, explosions, and dozens of dirtbags getting their guts redistributed should probably look elsewhere. In other words, plot takes second place to gunpowder here. Mitchell clearly demonstrated with Kill Zone that he was catering to action fans who like their fiction served high velocity and maximum carnage and that formula has not been mucked with in Lethal Strike. Mitchell knows what his target audience wants—namely, a triple digit body count—and he gives it to them in spades. Or rather, corpses.

Needless to say, this sort of stuff ain't for everybody. And that’s okay; if we all liked the same thing, we’d all be married to the same woman, and that would just get awkward. But for those who like their novels "all action, all the time," Lethal Strike delivers the bloody goods.