Reviews for The second life of Nick Mason
Publishers Weekly
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In two-time Edgar-winner Hamilton's new series, protagonist Nick Mason's first life ended when he began serving a 25-year sentence behind bars for participating in a robbery in which a federal agent was killed. His second life kicks in when he accepts Chicago crime kingpin Darius Cole's alternate plan: spending the next 20 years on the outside, living large, but ready to obey his savior's every whim. The apparently obvious choice has unforeseen consequences. Chief among them: Nick is not a murderer, regardless of his conviction, but Darius expects him to assassinate on demand. Along with an assortment of distinctive voices-Nick's has a chip-on-his-shoulder edge, Darius's is filled with calm gravitas-reader Porter delivers the protracted setup crisply and smoothly. Once Nick gets his initial assignment and is nearly killed himself, Hamilton's prose gets leaner, the plot (involving crooked narcotics cops) gets trickier, and Porter increases the pace and the intensity. A Putnam hardcover. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.
*Starred Review* Hamilton has crafted a tense, coiled thriller with creepy echoes of the Faust legend. Faust doesn't get the world, remember, but the devil does get his soul. Nick Mason is a product of a rough Chicago neighborhood, the kind where the kids turn to crime because they feel it's the only edge they have. He was on the fringes of a heist that went wrong 25 years wrong, in a maximum security prison. Five years into it he's singled out by lifer Darius Cole, the Satanic spider who still controls an international web of crime. Cole can purchase Nick's freedom, but Nick must agree to obey whatever instructions Cole transmits by special cell phone. And those instructions become increasingly vicious. Nick balks, and his attempts at redemption force him to confront an evil perhaps greater than Cole. It's the writing and pacing that make this archetypal story work. It moves like a bullet train, told in a deceptively simple, gin-clear prose that all but sucker punches the reader. And just wait until you learn what that greater evil is. Hamilton has been turning out fine thrillers for years, and this one the first in a projected series, and the book that launched a publishing scandal when the author took it back from its original publisher, charging lack of support is one of his best. Industry squabbles aside, the novel is too good not to find an audience.--Crinklaw, Don Copyright 2016 Booklist
