The Killer Collective by Barry Eisler

Immediately dropped into a world of cover-ups, espionage, mercenaries and dodgy goings-on with guns, threats and fights - I had to stop for breath before the story began.

Plans to investigate a paedophile ring are thwarted by some unknown body at a superior level for some unknown reason. A group of specialists at the top of their game are called together to find out about this. Unnamed people doing barely legal things and secret meetings...so exciting and mysterious.

If you are familiar with Eisler's work or the workings of the American system, technology, the CIA (or is it the FBI?) and guns, you may be able to follow aspects of the story better than I did, as at times it seemed as if I was missing something. Or perhaps it is because this is part of a series of books centring around a couple of the central characters. Who knows.

Eisler is a crisp writer, he doesn't waste time on flowery descriptions and mostly his prose is really engaging. The story flows well with plenty of action deftly worded in fairly short chapters. The gunfights and explosions keep the excitement and suspense going while the exotic locations, such as Bali and Paris, serve to make the story even more glamorous.

Although this book is billed as a story of revenge, the most obvious theme is one of isolation as each character is typically a loner with a couple of them yearning for lost love or past times. In their previous roles they also worked this way and as the 'Collective' they have to adapt to teamwork and work through distrust and potential personality clashes.
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This book is a great modern adventure, although it is better read as part of a series I suspect.

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The Killer Collective is published by Thomas and Mercer, on 1 February 2019.
​Advanced review copy supplied by the publisher.