This is further enhanced by narrator Aden Philip Ormond's excellent interpretation of this lead protagonist. The reading is well paced, not too fast, not too emotionally imbued but just right for the military trained loner rediscovering his past and his understanding of just how much he owed to his mother in the last precious moments they are able to have together. Her death is his new beginning as sets out in search of her killer. With expression and good intonation, Orson's pleasant rough velvety voice also gives individual life to each of the other characters in the book also. Writer and narrator in harmony together. This first book in a new loner-drifter series (think Lee Child's Reacher) is well written and, at times, almost poetic in it's atmospheric descriptions of both place and the inside of Widow's head. Told in the first person, it is an easy book to read, the sentences short and uncomplicated, like the man himself. But seeing through his eyes it is easy to empathize with him. Before long our hero is taken in to be interrogated, let go, asked to help, escorted out of town, tried to be beaten up, before giving in to helping the MPs with this case.

This book was by far the tensest of the four, even though it may not have dealt with the biggest consequences, it does deal with a subject that is on most people's minds. Domestic terrorism. It confronts some of the issues in today's world where everyone seems in such a hurry to label and draw conclusions, long before the facts are in. Towards the middle to end of this one makes me feel like the Incredible Hulk I used to watch on TV where at the end of every episode he would tell everyone thanks but no thanks and then head out of town which is exactly what our hero does. Overall if you know nothing at all about how firearms work and just want to enjoy a thriller with action and you do not mind the hero making astonishingly bad mistakes just so he could be rescued by some unrealistic thing at the very last moment over and over again you will be fine with this book. But go in warned.On arrival he upsets the local cops (obviously) and the local gang of nutcases (obviously) and of course starts a relationship with a lady doctor at a local clinic. And then the bad guys roll in to clean up their mess and the body count rises. Widow finds himself in Texas sitting at a steaming hot bus station waiting for a bus to someplace else. While waiting, he starts chatting with Claire, Hood, an elderly woman who looks rather distraught. She is looking for her missing granddaughter. Her son, who recently was released from prison has scooped her up and skipped town. Before Widow can get all the details, Claire drops dead of natural causes. In a year with tensions high regarding Muslim extremists, gun control, and police culture, the cops think that it's obvious that Marine Officer James Muhammad Turik was part of an ISIS cell. Did you read all of the above? Did it seem as if I went on and on without actually Saying anything? Or, did it seem as if I’d missed a pertinent point? Or went into too much detail? Yes? Well, brace yourself, there is A LOT of that in this book! Plus, the characters are all from The Deep South - so they speak slowly - I had to adjust the narration speed to 1.2 for it to seem normal for me! (I listened to the audiobook version of this title).

I’m at chapter 26. There’s no real story. 3 dead bodies, 1 severely wounded Deputy, a dozen missing girls and a completely racist, misogynistic, bigoted small town, with a blinkered Sheriff! Widow soon decides he needs to put his head on a pillow for a few hours, asks the waitress for the location of the nearest motel, and sets out to get himself some much needed sleep. That's the way I did it and just like Netflix, it's so satisfying to be able to binge on a series knowing that there's another one, except in this case it's the last one, for now. At times, Widow almost seems human in this book. He struggles with things that used to be second nature for him and even needs to enlist an old friend for assistance. Widow also steps things up and really gets his hands dirty in this one.

Publication Order of S. Lasher & Associates Books

After someone murdered his sheriff mother, Widow left the service to enjoy some of that freedom that he fought so hard to protect. Afterward, Widow finishes his coffee and leaves the diner to find a motel bed to sleep on. By the time his head hits the pillow, the military police show up, banging on his door. They've got questions and handcuffs.

Widow was the guy who investigated crimes that no one wanted to know about. Sometimes they involved the most dangerous men on earth. He ran away from home at seventeen, joined the Navy when he could. From there, he went to Annapolis. He was recruited by the NCIS as the first point man for Unit Ten, a highly secret undercover unit that had an agent who was embedded with the Navy SEALs as one of them. In the first chapter, specifically, Widow's thoughts on gunshot wounds went on for too long—sum it up in a paragraph, keep it short and sweet so the tension is high. You've got what should be a beginning that starts with a bang, but it ends up fizzling out with needless tangents. Turns out that James Turik, the Marine from the diner, went directly from the diner to the base and shot and killed five Marines before turning the gun on himself. Oh boy. And seeing as Widows was the last person to talk with him before this all went down, the military police want answers. Widow is handcuffed, and taken to the base for further questioning. It soon becomes apparent that Widow maybe the only one looking at the facts and not the assumptions. Gaining the trust of the people he will need to right this wrong won't be easy. There's a lot of tension and a case like this makes or breaks careers.After showing Widow a picture of her six-year-old granddaughter, Claire Hood drops dead of natural causes, right at the bus station, right in front of him. Her son, James Hood, is mixed up with the wrong people--powerful people. The kind of people who will kill to protect a deadly secret. Terrified for her granddaughter's life, she has no one left to trust. Widow is a former elite NCIS agent. He’s the guy who used to go undercover with the US Navy SEAL Teams. Anyway, ex military cop and special forces type (obviously) takes a delayed visit to his mum. She is a Sheriff and an ex-Marine (obviously) and has been shot while investigating the disappearance of a young girl. When she dies of her wound he decides to follow up the case and visit the area where other disappearances have been taking place. And he decides to take a break from his special secret Government job and just drift with nothing but a toothbrush for company. But as a starting point, why not visit the place where women have been vanishing? Obviously.

The concept here was really good, it was an interesting mystery but I had to take two stars off for wildly inaccurate claims about the firearms and ammunition as well as the many many times the hero did something fatal yet survived. But that's all I'll write on that. I did enjoy this book, and I really wanted to give it three stars, but there are too many technical errors and such. Weirdly enough it seemed the second half was more polished than the first half, and Widow seemed more believable as Blade got the hang of the character. The writing became tighter, too. I think if Widow could have watched this from the sidelines like we readers do, he'd shake his head and say, "never let facts get in the way of a good story" but he doesn't have that luxury. Some local townspeople want to blame Muslims. The politicians want to blame guns. The outside media only care about the headlines.