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Readers > Killed by Death > Comments And Reviews
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Comments And Reviews
"A real 'whodunit' page turner!" ActionTales.com
Killed by Death has more twists and turns than
a back country mountain road!
Johnny Taylor, CIA agent and professional assassin,
gets a most unusual assignment. He's to kill a U.S.
Air Force general.
Normally having no compunctions about killing enemies
of the U.S., he draws a line on this assignment. As a result, his partner is suddenly killed in a hail of bullets with Johnny
barely escaping. Shortly thereafter, a squad of Army Rangers attempts to ambush him. He's now on the run! But whom can he trust? His intended target? The Director of the CIA? The President?
When unknown forces attempt to blow up an aircraft carrier
and kill the President, Johnny starts putting together the
jigsaw puzzle to understand who the opposition is and what they want. He then makes a startling discovery. HE is a pawn in this conspiracy! Every move he makes has been anticipated!
Great read! You're thrown into the story immediately. You'll have a tough time putting this book down!
ActionTales.com
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Every so often you come across a book and think to yourself, this would be a great movie. Killed By Death, by Bill MacWithey, would be just such a book if Hollywood was still in the business of making fast paced thrillers with an air of mystery and danger. It reminded me quite a lot of The Black Bird, the story that The Maltese Falcon was based upon, but MacWithey brings a fresh voice and style to the genre.
Reading MacWithey’s novel is an experience similar to reading the early works of such techno-thriller writers as Tom Clancy, and somewhat more approachable. MacWithey’s tale doesn’t get bogged down in endless pages of technical discussions that slow and detract from that action of the central story. There is more than enough information contained within these pages, of course, to satisfy any enthusiast for this type of novel. A description of how a sabotage attempt is carried out deep in the bowels of a modern nuclear aircraft carrier is chilling at any level.
The fact that the attempt is part of an assassination plot against the US president only adds to the tension.
MacWithey’s hero, the innocuously named Johnny Taylor is more of an anti-hero than anyone you’ll encounter in Clancy, or Clive Cussler. A loner, isolated from human emotion, Taylor is an assassin in the hire of the CIA. A proficient killer, he believes himself justified by the fact that he does what he does in defense of his country. It is only when he balks at his latest assignment, targeting a U.S. Army General, that he finds himself entangled in a conspiracy maddening in its complexity. Now the assassin must become the detective, trying to uncover not only the identity of the conspirators but what their ultimate goals really are.
Along the way he meets an interesting and well-realized cast of believable characters, all of whom wear away at the mental barriers he depends upon to continue his work as an assassin. The final confrontation and resolution of the story is exciting and well paced, and it leaves Taylor a changed man at the end, sadder and wiser, and able, perhaps, to live a full life, open to love and happiness.
A reader would not go wrong hoping to see more of this character, and more from this author.
Michael P. Higgins, author of Tell No Tales
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WARNING!!!................
Do not begin reading this book...unless you have time to be
mesmerized for 339 pages!!!! After reading the opening paragraph, without even thinking, I mentally began re-arranging my priorities, to allow more time to enjoy the cunning cleverness of the CIA's top hit man - Johnny Taylor. Let me introduce him...
Taylor had returned from Saudi Arabia...after trekking around in the desert for a month. Five months he tracked Elijah Farsouke all over the Middle East before finally nailing the man...suspected of masterminding a half dozen terrorist bombings...including two in the United States. Farsouke had been the toughest sonofabitch he'd ever been assigned to kill. But not once had he failed to complete an assignment. When he set out to track down and kill someone, it was a foregone conclusion the man was dead.
If you're looking for hold-your-breath suspense - it exists from page one to the page which reads THE END. The repertoire is first rate; the multiple plots and myriad characters mesh without flaw, and the inside looks into the military, its race for superior weaponry and anything 'stealth', are fascinating and educational.
The entire story doesn't revolve around only macho mayhem, tho this is one of the bigger subplots. There is more than one love story, some successes, tragedies and very rewarding 'come-uppances' of high-powered, deceitful, avaricious figures.
In a sentence, Killed By Death should appeal to any reader who enjoys action, plots which keep them guessing to the collective denouements, cheering when the good guys win and the bad guys lose, and plain old-fashioned storytelling.
One more question, Bill, "When can we look for your next novel?"
Sonya Rolls
srollss+netscape.net
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"A tale of treachery and espionage in the highest levels of government!" ActionTales.com
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