Book review - I Kill

André Warner, manhunter is back, and with a vengeance. That’s what he deals in, sometimes – vengeance. Most of the time, he’s an assassin for hire, as we learned in End as an Assassin. Lex Lander’s sequel to that fast-paced traumatic thriller is a page-turner, and again no holds are barred.

It begins with a death – one planned, one unplanned. An echo of the start of End as an Assassin, almost; but with a difference. This time he really has retired from his deadly profession. Or so he thought. As his employer/contact says, ‘Some professions are not for quitting.’

So, his latest hit was in Tangier, with an alias. While sorting out his hardware issues for the hit, he encounters Clair Power, who is staying at the hotel with her teenage daughter, Lizzy. Before long, he’s helping them to ward off the unwanted attentions of Dutchman Rik de Bruin.

Yet again we’re immersed in the faux reality of Warner’s world, the details so convincing that it must be ‘real’.

Warner’s relationship with Clair – and later with Lizzy – becomes complicated as the plot thickens. There’s abduction, gunplay, brutal violence and sex in roughly equal measure.  And poignancy, and death too.

Another highly enjoyable breathless tale told in Warner’s own words. And, happily, more will follow with the third adventure, The Man who Hunted Himself due out later this year. I’ll be there.