Killed in Action

November 6, 2017
Robert McCall (aka the Equalizer) once worked for a clandestine intelligence service known as the Company, but he now helps others as a “white knight ready to do battle for those with nowhere else to turn.” In this fast-moving, episodic sequel to 2014’s The Equalizer, which was based on the 1980s TV show of the same name, McCall rescues damsels from sex slavery, teaches a morality lesson to a wealthy New York landlord, retrieves a captured American soldier in Syria, tracks down his missing former spymaster, stops a series of homegrown terrorist attacks, evades a mysterious assassin group, and, finally, exposes the deadly vigilante who is co-opting his secret identity. Sloan, the TV show’s creator, has a cinematic flair with description, but he can get a little cute when he gives characters the names or features of celebrities. The ending trips over itself to gather the entire cast and set up a cliff-hanger hook for next time, but this is a series that proves the old adage that the book is usually better than the screen version.

November 15, 2017
Sloan, co-creator of The Equalizer television series from the 1980s and author of the first installment in a print reboot of that series (The Equalizer, 2014), delivers another strong entry in the adventures of Robert McCall. If the odds are against you, there is nobody better than McCall to come to your aid. This one starts off a bit confusingly, until the reader learns that there is another person posing as the Equalizer. The impostor utilizes extremely harsh and violent methods, and the real Equalizer quickly gets blamed for the other's actions. To make matters worse, McCall seeks help from his former handler but is shocked to discover that someone has taken his place, too, and there is no record of his former boss ever existing. Sloan knows how to create a flawed yet heroic protagonist whom readers will root for, and this high-energy story, drenched in misdirection, will draw fans of Gregg Hurwitz's Orphan X (2016).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)