Early Week Thrillerfest

Yesterday wasn’t bad for a Monday consumed as it was with thrillers over the spectrum of both literary and broadcast mediums.  Last night I had to bid farewell to Jack Bauer again as “24” ended its all too short a season.  If you haven’t seen the finale yet and care – stop reading now.  

Jack can’t buy a break and really is the embodiment of a tragic hero.  He stops World War 3, kills a literal boatload of Russian(big surprise)/Chinese bad guys, and induces the lead bad guy to lose his head – via a samurai sword no less and yet ends up surrendering to the Russians to save Chloe.

I know tragic Jack needs to atone for his sins (throwing Lady Stark out the window and his samurai haircut) but c’mon let’s give the poor bastard a break; especially in the romance department.  Any woman in love with him inevitably ends the day with a fatal dose of lead poisoning, sayonara Audrey last night.  When she bought the farm I knew Jack wasn’t going to ride off into the sunset, which he has earned in spades.  Sending Jack to Moscow could solve that city’s overcrowding problems in short order though.  All in all a great season that reminded me why I loved the series so much.  A man purse carrying, super-spy – who knew that would work so well!

I also concluded my latest speed reading exercise of a Brad Thor novel (he does that to me) with Scot Horvath’s adventures in Black List.  Horvath also has Bauer like romantic issues with yet another lady love getting shot in the head in the opening pages.  Horvath and his group of semi-private operators are targeted for assassination by a NSA super-contractor. 

The book had Horvath jumping through his normal semi-superhuman antics to rescue the people closest to him and save the country from destruction along the way.  Thor went really political in this one with some scathing comments on the intrusions into our daily lives, our privacy, and ultimately our freedom by our dependence on the internet.  The NSA contractor can delve into the intimate facts of virtually anybody’s lives and is ready to crash the internet to create chaos needed to impose an authoritarian government.  It would be laughable if it didn’t ring so true.  I’m sadly reaching the end of my Horvath journey as I loved this book so much I immediately started the next which is the last in the series published so far.  Vince Flynn, here I come.