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Monday 5 April 2021

Someone Else's Life by Kevin Simington

 

I've often started watching a TV series (British/American/Canadian/Australian, any English-speaking!) and known instinctively from the first half hour I'll have an insatiable appetite for that series and want it to go on forever.  Some just grab you, instantly.

This book is that TV series. I hadn't got very far, not even into the story that much, but knew I wanted a sequel or ten. I was instantly captivated by the main character, John Targett, the slick, snappy, witty dialogue and his own narrative. It's written in first-person POV (his) and in the present tense (alas (my pet hate), but we'll let that go).

John Targett is a widower, ex-military combat instructor, a PI and self-defence expert, who lives with his teenage daughter. The rather mundane nature of his too-few cases suddenly spikes when he's asked to look into an unusual identity case, at the same time becoming the target of an unscrupulous gang whom he appears to have upset. He soon realises they plan reprisals, serious ones, and that he has to take drastic action to protect the one thing he loves more than life itself: his daughter.

This book doesn't stand still for one minute. It's pacey, engaging…as are all the characters, especially all those in Targett's immediate circle. They are all very easy to like, not least Targett himself: he's smart, loyal, protective, fit, handsome (by all accounts) and at times, very funny.

The last line of the book is a scorcher and rather niftily leaves the door ajar for a sequel and hopefully more because…there was only one thing very, very wrong with this book: it ended.




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