A Billion Ways To Die

A Billion Ways To Die (Thriller)

By Chris Knopf

The Permanent Press www.thepermanentpress.com

ISBN #978-579623630

272 Pages

Price $29.00

Rating 5-Stars

In this third, and possibly final novel, featuring Arthur Cathcart and his Japanese girlfriend, Natsumi Fitzsgerald, they are vacationing on his sailboat, Detour, when a team of mercenaries kidnaps them and they are tortured for information about a missing billion dollars, which he supposedly has. Unable to find out what they want to know, the kidnappers order the mercs to kill them. Instead, the mercenaries release them.

Now Cathcart wants to know what it’s all about, and soon learns it still involves someone from his past, who is supposed to be in prison. It appears to involve government loans to people in third-world countries, and someone is funneling the money to their own accounts. Somehow, Cathcart is suspected of intercepting the funds and funneling them elsewhere. The FBI and the bad guys are after him and everyone wants the money back – and him dead.

This is an interesting series, and although I never read the first story we’re told that Cathcart’s wife had been into something possibly criminal, and big. Killers shot them both in the head, leaving them for dead.. His wife died, but Cathcart’s sister, a doctor, was able to save him in secret and nurse him back to health. He remains dead to everyone but a retired FBI agent, his sister, and Natsumi. Using his computer skills, he brought his murderers to justice, but he must remain dead, and on the run.  The two books I have read are fascinating entries, and the characters are involved in billion dollar intrigue and danger. The pace is fast, and writing smooth, keeping the reader turning the pages. Highly recommended.

Tom Johnson

Detective Mystery Stories