Book Review -- The Warrior by Ty Patterson

The Warrior by Ty Patterson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is my second Indie author venture. For those of you who don't know Indie = independently published author. An author whose books are published directly on Amazon. No publisher involved or rather self publishing. I came to know about Ty Patterson's books through the group A Good Thriller which we are both members of. Ty commented on one of my posts within the group with a comment that was in no way a self promoting comment. It made me look him up on GoodReads and from there to his books. While I must say I did not pay $0.99 for his book, having gotten this one for free by signing up for his website. I am curious about the series. It deals with the murky and shadowy world of private contracting. This is what I have gotten from reading the blurb on the book jacket so far. It is an intriguing world to say the least, most of the off books and black ops these days are done using the private contractors - they have no oversight, no rules of engagement binding them and they don't answer to the Geneva Convention. For the right price the private contractors can deliver you what you want - no questions asked. They will even gift wrap it up for you if necessary. Such is this world of secretive deals and even secretive operatives. They are for the lack of a better word modern day mercenaries available for sale to the highest bidder.

These facts make it all the more interesting that no big ticket author has take a crack at this angle for setting any of their series. The novel starts off in Congo where a mass butchering has just happened and a person who could help was asked to stay put and just recon. They say to catch a thief put a thief on his trail. Similarly there are some private contractors gone rogue in DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) and Zeb is called in to find and report on them. The narrative changes from first person to third person and back within the chapter and it is a bit jarring at first to go from first person to third person, but eventually the reader adapts to the back and forth. Thus begins The Warrior series. Patterson does a very good job of introducing the readers to a group of special ops veterans who are a tight knit group.

I liked Zeb. The character has a lot of layers built into him. Of course he is a kick-ass operative who is stern and stoic, but he also has a lot of tenderness in him which comes out when he plays ball with his sisters neighbors son Rory. He is determined and ruthless in his pursuit of the mass murderers but he is also careful in keeping the innocents out of the harms way. The Black Warriors introduced by Patterson are equally good and if The Warrior was Zeb's story then I would like to read about the rest of them one by one in the other books in the series while they are out dealing their brand of justice.

Sometimes vigilante style justice is what is needed. The Warrior is the story of powerful people twisting, breaking and manipulating law and getting away with it.. almost. It is about how the world does not care for the lesser countries in the world beyond paying lip service to the cause. It is about the system that manages the world is broken but there are still people who care enough to fight for it.

It is an interesting debut and a very fast read. So looking forward to the other books in the series. I promise you Ty they are on my shopping list at Amazon and very soon will be reviewed here as well.