The Four-Night Run by William Lashner is a page-turning, suspense-filled thriller. Don't start reading it late in the afternoon, or you won't get sleep that night. It kept my attention from start to finish so I gave it five stars

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Lashner has done it again with quirky, memorable characters, just like the ones in Guaranteed Heroes, I will remember them a long time.

 

J.D. Scrbacek is the attorney protagonist, who gives a different ethnic persuasion for the origin of his name each time he is asked. He doesn't know who to trust or where to turn after a bomb destroyed his SUV and intern who started the vehicle after he won a case for his brutal mobster client, Caleb Breest.

 

He has to examine his past, present and future to determine who is attempting to kill him. Can he do this before they finish the job?

 

I received a complimentary Kindle copy from Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley. That did not change my opinion for this review.

 

Link to purchase: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Night-Run-William-Lashner-ebook/dp/B015NXSHWG

Guaranteed Heroes by William Lashner is an intriguing & thought-provoking book.  It was slow starting but picked up the pace & the characters were well developed.  I gave it four stars.

 

I will remember Moonis Fell, Cecily Fell, Clyde Sparrow & Garth for a long time.  Each character had individual strengths & weaknesses that were clearly delineated.

 

"This side of the river is a vacuum in which the worst impulses of humanity have been left to fester & grow."  Garth told Cecily who was also known as 'Raden's Girl'.

 

Moonis & Gaston got into a fight over playing chess.  "The smell of body odor & tobacco, of men confined together in hatred & despair was well-nigh overwhelming as it mixed with the men's cheers & curses."

 

The forced labor camp:  "The LCM was surrounded by a tall chain-link fence topped by barbed wire, but that couldn't keep out the stars.  Sometimes looking up at the distant heavens was the only way to feel free in this world."

 

Cecily said:  "I think the cruelest thing is to have expectations in your life.  When they get snuffed out, you never really recover."

 

When Clyde was looking for Cecily in the Ventura district ..."Clyde stayed leaning against the wall, chewing & loitering, letting the sun lick his face like a happy puppy."

 

William Lashner is a word master & I have enjoyed his writing for years.  This was a different style for him but now I have a book hangover from it.

 

I received a complimentary copy from Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley.  That did not change my opinion for this review.

 

Link to purchase:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1477827633

It's not necessary to have read any of the other books in the series to have enjoyed this book. I haven't and did enjoy the story. Flawed characters make for the best protagonist, and the main character comes with many flaws. Beyond that there is nothing special about this somewhat flawed lawyer and partial detective who wakes up with a girls named tattooed on his back and tries to find out why it got their. There not being anything special about the story is probably why it's so entertaining.

The mystery is given to the listener in the first few minutes of the story. A crazy sounding old man approaches the barkeep and tells him he killed his mother and his father is falsely imprisoned. The charm for the story lies elsewhere. The barkeep uses one book as his guide book, "The Tibetan Book of the Dead" and embraces the Tao of that book giving him a Zen like detachment from the rest of the world. The barkeep also keeps the code of the bartender and knows how to separate himself from patrons of the bar.

There's a lot to like with this story: the dialog between characters was full of witty repartee, the code that any barkeep (or for that matter, any person) needs to keep ones distance from others, the process of discovery one learns about oneself while focusing outside of oneself , finding the actual murderer of the barkeeps mother, and the problem with detachment all add to a very fun story to listen to in spite of the serious nature of the crimes under investigation.

I enjoyed the narrator. He gave voices to most of the characters, exaggerated voices and emotions, and really let the theater of my mind go to town. The author and the narrator made for a good diversion and helped me detach further from the world much in the same way that the barkeep was in the beginning of the story.