This is quite a compelling read. The story is well plotted and there's a good bit of action.
It lacks polish, however. It needs better editing; there are schoolboy errors like 'here, here!' (hear, hear). Really. Poor grammar and pluralisation using apostrophes…my bugbear. The dialogue is rather wooden, as are the characters. There's way too much 'telling' and no 'showing'. There is also a marked lack of scene breaks, resulting in a lot of headhopping.
The story features Rico, a hitman for hire. Never expecting to cross paths with a man he was supposed to kill (but didn't), Rico finds himself joining forces with him to protect a young girl, who witnessed a shooting in a carjacking gone wrong, from a hitman hired to kill her to prevent her testifying against the culprit.
Despite his hard-nosed vigilantism, I really wanted Rico to have some softness, a hint of a marshmallow centre, some likeability, but he has none. And I couldn't drum up any interest in any of the other characters, either.
Duncan has succeeded in one thing: getting the reader to turn the pages because despite the cardboard characters, there's a half decent plot.
A WIP, I think.
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