Friday, September 18, 2015

The Killing Kind - Chris Holm

The Killing Kind
Chris Holm
Mulholland Books/Little Brown, Sep 15 2015, $26.00
ISBN: 9780316259538

The Havana-based Corporation mob sends Cuban hitman Javier Cruz to Miami to take out Edgar Morales for buying property in the slummy Goulds neighborhood with a plan to gentrify it.  Learning the hit former special ops officer officiously dead in combat Michael Hendricks and his partner the only other surviving member of his military unit wheelchair bound Lester determine Morales is ethical.  Thus Hendricks offers to murder Cruz if Morales pays the fee of ten times that of what the Corporation paid their professional.  Applying meticulous precision to avoid harming innocent bystanders, Hendricks executes the predator.

American crime syndicates become concerned with the phantom hitman killing hitmen.  Thus their Council commissions top gun Alexander Engelmann, whose kills include numerous collateral damage victims, to exterminate the pest.  As Engelmann researches his target to ascertain an Achilles’ heel like a former girlfriend or his brother in arms; FBI Special Agents Charlotte Thompson and Henry Garfield hunt both pros though differ in their opinions as to whom the “ghost” murders. 

Setting aside plausibility, The Killing Kind is a fantastic crime thriller starring the Good (Thompson), the Bad (Hendricks) and the Ugly (Engelmann).  The rival killers and Charlie in this cat and mouse drama are fully-developed while the appreciative audience anticipates a wild royal rumble climatic confrontation with no inclination as to whom will walk away from the final showdown.


Harriet Klausner

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