Nothing to See Here
When an old high school friend reaches out to you with an offer you cannot refuse, do you answer? What if you and the friend are from opposite ends of the tracks, yours being the bad side and you were used so she could flourish? Why not drop everything to go visit? What could go wrong? It’s not like the kids catch on fire…
“I thought about Madison, maybe the most beautiful woman I’d ever met in real life, who was also so weirdly smart, always considering the odds of every scenario. If she had a job for me, I’d take it. I’d leave my mom’s attic. I’d empty out my life because I was honest enough to know that I didn’t have much that I’d miss when it disappeared.”
“could have placed all my household troops in the small houses and, the moment the raiders came, erupted into the street with sword, ax, and spear, and we would have killed some of them, but in the dark many more would have escaped and I did not want one to escape. I wanted every Dane, every Norseman, every raider dead. All of them, except one, and that one I would send eastward to tell the Viking camps on the banks of the Temes that Uhtred of Bebbanburg was waiting for them.”
In Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse (a “Jack Ryan Universe” book????), John Clark is the “hero” as he drifts a bit doing work for government using his SEAL skills. When he happens upon a lost woman, things begin to turn around until they spiral out of control. His loss becomes a call for revenge as he takes on criminals who act with impunity. This in the backdrop of continuing aggression by the Vietnamese (North) as this is set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War.
In this the sixth book in The Day After Never Series, it picks up where the fifth novel leave off and the Chinese are landing in an attempt to take control of America’s northwest. Both the town and Lucas are set to get away, but things don’t go as planned and a group decides to return to return to help some folks who were left behind. Facing overwhelming odd, they look to take on a highly trained AND armed Chinese force.
“Someone was watching, Mira seemed to think, perhaps tapping her phone or the house itself, and she worried enough to try a bit of cloak and dagger. I attempted to tease out more observations, Sherlock Holmes style, but the only thing on my list was the fact that the client claimed not to be able to leave her home, yet the business card had been hand delivered. I was throwing on my blazer when I heard the groan. instinctively my left hand dropped to the butt of my weapon, right reaching for the phone again. That was another reason I liked the hard line – 911 had a much better response time and the dispatch center would see my name and address on their screens.”