Exit Strategy

March 27, 2017
Edgar-winner Mason’s sequel to 2016’s The Second Life of Nick Mason falls short of his usual high standard. In Second Life, Mason, a nonviolent thief incarcerated for felony murder after a fellow conspirator took a life in the course of a robbery, made a deal with the devil. In exchange for arranging for Mason’s early release from prison via false, exonerating testimony, criminal kingpin and fellow inmate Darius Cole exacted a promise that Mason would “do whatever was asked of him.” Cole now orders Mason, who’s already murdered one man at Cole’s insistence, to take out Ken McLaren, who was once Cole’s chief accountant. A key witness against Cole, McLaren is under heavy federal protection in Chicago. Despite the obstacles, Mason succeeds in breaching the government’s Witness Security Program. The plot follows familiar lines, Mason’s transformation into an unstoppable killing machine is unconvincing, and he and the other characters lack depth. Author tour. Agent: Shane Salerno, Story Factory.

April 1, 2017
Nick Mason, who has been killing people for Darius Cole, the all-powerful inmate who got him sprung from a maximum security prison in exchange for such services, is targeted himself after initiating a scheme to free himself from Cole's clutches.In Hamilton's acclaimed series debut, The Second Life of Nick Mason (2016), the embattled protagonist agreed to do Cole's lethal bidding after serving five years of a 25-to-life sentence (for a killing he did not commit) so he could see his 9-year-old daughter again. He was set up in a luxury apartment in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, a far cry from the working-class South Side community where he had been a small-time criminal. In the sequel, Mason is ordered to penetrate seemingly impenetrable federal witness protection facilities and kill former associates of Cole's set to testify against him in a retrial. Attempting to regain control of his life, Mason has to contend with not only Cole's henchmen, but also a scary Irish assassin with ties to the crime lord. Moral considerations get short shrift, and Hamilton is nothing if not expedient in dispatching characters, including the attractive pet shop owner with whom Mason is involved. And those who haven't read the first installment will miss quite a bit in terms of context and character development. But when it comes to no-nonsense, pressure-cooker plotting, Hamilton has few rivals. The book starts turning up the heat from the start with an office building bombing and maintains its breathless pacing until the end. Though this book lacks the depth of the series opener, its hard-wired plot and adrenaline-fueled scenes make it another must-read for fans of lean, mean crime fiction.

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Starred review from May 1, 2017
Making deals with the devil has long been a theme in crime fiction, but there has never been a deal as devilish as the one Nick Mason was forced to strike with Darius Cole (The Second Life of Nick Mason, 2016). Yes, crime-boss Cole engineered Mason's release from federal prison and return to Chicago, but, in exchange, Nick is now Cole's designated killer, dispatched by cell phone to hit whomever Cole believes needs hitting. (It's all part of Cole's plan to overturn his own life sentence.) Striking back at the devil appears impossible, but Nick has no choice: the burden of killing for hire has become unbearable, thanks mainly to the knowledge that the people Nick cares about are as good as dead if he ever decides not to answer his cell. And, so, Nick's exit strategy is born. The intensity Hamilton generates here is almost too muchlike a wailing siren growing steadily louder at the same time its pitch climbs ever higherbut readers will be utterly powerless to close the book. Noir is all about characters attempting to find options for themselves where none exist. The brilliance of this thoroughly uncompromising novel lies in the way Hamilton, with the legerdemain of a master conjurer, turns despair to hope and back again, finally blending the two into their own unique nightmare world. Stunning.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2017

With The Second Life of Nick Mason, Hamilton launched a new series and made the New York Times best sellers list for the first time. This follow-up has the hero looking to crack the top-secret federal witness-protection program to find and kill three men who put his boss behind bars.

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