Lee Hunts

I just finished reading Betrayal, which is the third book in the Ryan Drake thriller series. In the latest instalment, Ryan Drake finds himself in hot water when a person from the past shows up in his life and does the incomprehensible. This is a betrayal that demands explanation, and it lands Drake in Russia, where he is dragged into a complex conspiracy that threatens his life and American relations with Russia. This book, in terms of plot, is by far the best book in the series up to this point. At the same time, the characters are only increasingly lacking as the story progresses and this weighs down my enjoyment, especially in retrospect. Interestingly, I've become more critical of the other books in hindsight, and I'm not entirely sure whether that is a more accurate reflection of my views or not. Either way, the previous books, while tense and exciting, notably lacked in the power of the plot twists. Maybe the Caine plot twist was good, but I remember the rest of the twis...

I just finished Redemption, a novel written by Will Jordan. Jordan is a Youtube critic known as the Critical Drinker. I've always enjoyed his takes on the various movies that he reviews, so I wanted to check out his books, this one being the first of nine, to see if it was any good. His book is marketed alongside David Baldacci and Lee Child mystery/thrillers. I haven't read Baldacci yet, but I have read one Child novel, which I rather enjoyed, so I think I naturally compared the two. And since I have also read the novels of various Youtubers—including Justin Little, David Stewart, and Daniel Greene—I will also be comparing this book to those. This book follows the protagonist, Ryan Drake, a British man who now works for the CIA. At the beginning of the book, he has landed a job in tracking down MIA operatives for the CIA, despite a problematic past he is ashamed of. In this novel he is asked to extract a highly trained MIA operative who is being held in a prison. The job is sh...