The Way I Die

February 1, 2018
If you set a thief to catch a thief, should you hire a contract killer to thwart a contract killing?Holed up on Mackinac Island as he mourns the wife who was murdered in his last outing (A Different Lie, 2015) and the son he sent away to be brought up by someone with a less objectionable lifestyle, hit man Columbus, now calling himself Copeland, isn't looking for any new jobs: his freelance work and his assignments for Uncle Sam have already sucked the life out of him. But his old fence, Archie Grant, comes to him with a proposition he can't turn down. Someone's arranged a hit on facial-recognition software designer Matthew Boone, and his two motherless boys may well be included in the package. A mutual friend has asked Archie for advice, and Archie doesn't think much of Max Finnerich, the security expert Boone's hired to protect his family. Could Columbus fly out West to Portland to protect Boone more proactively than Finnerich and his minions are doing? Despite thinking, "I'm the sword, not the armor," the veteran assassin agrees to try his luck, and boy, is he lucky. In short order, he breaches Finnerich's cursory defenses, introduces himself to a surprised Boone, and talks himself into his confidence, kills two armed men who turn up at the target's house, and lets Peyton Martin, the ex-cop who's the least clueless of Boone's security detail, tell him the story of her life. But all these measures, he realizes, are nothing but temporizing unless he can identify and neutralize the assassin who's coming after Boone--and the client who hired him in the first place."You're not going to like me when this is over," Haas' hit man warns his readers. Maybe not, but you won't be able to avert your eyes from a single scene in this stripped-down, dead-eyed, professional-grade actioner.

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 19, 2018
Haas’s gripping fifth thriller featuring contract killer Columbus (after 2015’s
A Different Lie) finds the assassin, who has changed his name to Coleman, uneasily settled in a remote area of Michigan’s Mackinac Island, where he grieves over the loss of his family and contemplates the various ways he could die. He’s tracked down by his former fence, Archie Grant, who offers him a different kind of job. Instead of a kill, Archie wants him to protect megarich Portland, Ore., software designer Matthew Boone, who has been targeted by another assassin. It’s the kind of redemption that Coleman doesn’t want, yet desperately needs, and he agrees to test Boone’s large security team. The ease with which Coleman breaks into Boone’s office shows the security team’s inadequacies. On Coleman’s advice, Boone fires every team member except for the intelligent desk guard he met on first entering Boone’s building, Peyton Martin. Soon Coleman and Martin are matching wits with a clever foe. Haas packs solid suspense, vivid action, and well-developed characters into a tight plot that never lags. Agent: Mel Berger, William Morris Endeavor.

Starred review from March 1, 2018
After a mark kills his wife (in A Different Lie, 2015), world-class assassin Columbus cuts ties, reinvents himself as Copeland, and retreats to remote Mackinac Island to contemplate the most appropriate way to end his life. Until, that is, his only friend, Archibald Grant, approaches him with a new kind of job: protector. Tech billionaire Matthew Boone has developed facial-recognition software that would effectively eliminate any spy's ability to stay under the radar, and everyone worth being scared of wants it. When Boone won't sell the code, a contract is taken out on him, and Grant persuades Columbus/Copeland to protect Boone's family until he can uncover the hit's originator. It should be an easy job?there are few hitters at Columbus' level. But he's lost a bit of his edge and finds himself playing catch-up after taking a few disastrous false steps. Columbus is an emotionally heavier character here, as he bears down to avoid emotional fallout from taking a job with a different kind of consequence. Still, fans will recognize his cynical charm, especially as he considers the idea of mentoring Peyton, another natural assassin he's discovered on Boone's payroll. Screenwriter Haas succeeds at making the slightly evolved Columbus as intriguing (and screen-worthy) in this fifth episode as he was in the first dangerous glimpse of him (The Silver Bear, 2008).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)