Wet Work
Les Roberts
Gray & Company, Publishers; Sep 1 2014, $14.95
ISBN: 9781938441547
After leaving Youngstown, Ohio for the military, Dominick
Candiotti learned to kill in Viet Nam as a Phoenix Force Wet Work assassin. Decades later with no family living and
calling himself Douglas, he works for the Brownstone Agency on a fee for kill of
internal enemies of the country. His
handler Og has one rule: complete the kill but never repeat the same M.O.
His current hit is Father Joseph Benveniste of St. Catherine’s
Catholic Church in Philadelphia. Though
he completes the assignment following his confessional, this assassination affects
Douglas differently than his previous hits since going on commission five years
ago. He wonders if killing a priest
reminds him too much of the murder of his brother Father Richard (see The Strange Death of Father Candy)
and besides there is no justification for murdering people like Father Joseph
who were no threat to America. When
Douglas informs Og he is retiring, his handler believes the one way a hired gun
quits is in a coffin. Thus several of
his peers come after Douglas.
Giving Cleveland detective Milan
Jacovich a breather, Les Roberts writes an
action-packed thriller in Dominick Candiotti’s second appearance. The hero reminds me of a composite of Charles
Bronson’s The Mechanic and Sylvester Stallone’s
Assassins. Although not for anyone with
a squeamish stomach as the amount of blood flow would turn Lake Erie into the
Red Sea, readers will enjoy this tense suspense.
Harriet Klausner
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