Pun Salad

Consumer note: $5.99 for the Kindle version at Amazon.

I, however, shelled out $9.99, because I put in my order when the book was announced. It's the third book in his "Nick Mason" series, previous entries being The Second Life of Nick Mason and Exit Strategy.

Spoiler for that last one: Nick's "exit strategy" from his life as a gangster's "ninja" (i.e., hired killer) didn't work out well: he's simply been transferred to a different puppet master, even shadier than the gangster. But one thing doesn't change: Nick's being coerced into his violent behavior by credible threats against his ex-wife and daughter.

So: Nick is sent off to Indonesia to take out a terrorist. He's working with a small team of people, and nobody seems to like him much. And, worse, his assassination attempt ends in dismal failure (but much carnage). So they must regroup and try again. (And again. And again.) Nick goes through a lot of mental and physical anguish, and a lot of bodies pile up along the way. And, yes, there's a setup for the next book in the series.

I got a chuckle out of some dialog on page 168, where the bad guy snarls at Nick: "You need to stop acting like this is some kind of cheap American action movie." For better or worse, I'd been thinking that this book was extremely suitable to be made into an American action movie. Maybe not a cheap one, but…