The Killing Season - Mason Cross

Action thriller that ticks all the boxes, and more...

I'm not saying The Killing Season is a great book or in any way original. It's not. If however all you're looking for is a heart-pounding action-thriller that has you hooked from the beginning and has enough credible twists and thrills along the way, this is as good as it gets. Credible being the operative word, and you don't often get that in books of this kind.

The Killing Season is the first Carter Blake novel by Mason Cross. No, there's nothing that stands out from the title or the fairly anonymous name of the lead character. Nor is there anything that jumps out at you as fresh or original about the nature of this particular thriller. Blake is another silent assassin/killer-for-hire whose background is mostly a mystery, and he's not the kind of man to give out much information about himself. He is however good enough at his job to be engaged by the FBI to track down a serial killer sniper who has escaped from a prison van taking him to his execution. Caleb Wardell's about to resume the random killings that terrorised Chicago, but this time he's got a few other scores to settle as well.

As far as the man-hunt drama goes it's a fairly standard plot with all the stock characters in place for additional tensions. There's some internal FBI rivalry and ambitions, as well as some family concerns for one of the agents, Banner. Even so, it's well-paced and drawn out by Mason Cross, with good descriptive writing and a rapidly escalating plot. What makes the plot a little better than most is that all is not as it appears to be on the surface. Wardell's escape and the killing might seem a little too convenient, but that's because it is. There's clearly someone else involved with other interests here.

So, there's a bit of a twist and The Killing Season is a conspiracy thriller as well - still not anything exceptional. In fact, it's a bit much to ask that a random and unpredictable killer could be used for any kind of conspiracy, but that's what makes the difference here. Mason Cross works hard to make it credible, keeping the plot moving forward solidly, knowing the direction its going, but allowing some elements of unpredictability in there to spice the whole thing up. Blake too is inevitably something of a rogue element, and it will be interesting to see where the author takes this character next. In the meantime, this ticks all the boxes for a well-written action-thriller.

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