After someone murdered his sheriff mother, Widow left the service to enjoy some of that freedom that he fought so hard to protect. Towards the middle to end of this one makes me feel like the Incredible Hulk I used to watch on TV where at the end of every episode he would tell everyone thanks but no thanks and then head out of town which is exactly what our hero does. Overall if you know nothing at all about how firearms work and just want to enjoy a thriller with action and you do not mind the hero making astonishingly bad mistakes just so he could be rescued by some unrealistic thing at the very last moment over and over again you will be fine with this book. But go in warned. Widow is a former elite NCIS agent. He’s the guy who used to go undercover with the US Navy SEAL Teams. After showing Widow a picture of her six-year-old granddaughter, Claire Hood drops dead of natural causes, right at the bus station, right in front of him.

Turns out that James Turik, the Marine from the diner, went directly from the diner to the base and shot and killed five Marines before turning the gun on himself. Oh boy. And seeing as Widows was the last person to talk with him before this all went down, the military police want answers. Widow is handcuffed, and taken to the base for further questioning.

In the first chapter, specifically, Widow's thoughts on gunshot wounds went on for too long—sum it up in a paragraph, keep it short and sweet so the tension is high. You've got what should be a beginning that starts with a bang, but it ends up fizzling out with needless tangents. In a year with tensions high regarding Muslim extremists, gun control, and police culture, the cops think that it's obvious that Marine Officer James Muhammad Turik was part of an ISIS cell. At times, Widow almost seems human in this book. He struggles with things that used to be second nature for him and even needs to enlist an old friend for assistance. Widow also steps things up and really gets his hands dirty in this one.

On arrival he upsets the local cops (obviously) and the local gang of nutcases (obviously) and of course starts a relationship with a lady doctor at a local clinic. And then the bad guys roll in to clean up their mess and the body count rises. It soon becomes apparent that Widow maybe the only one looking at the facts and not the assumptions. Gaining the trust of the people he will need to right this wrong won't be easy. There's a lot of tension and a case like this makes or breaks careers. But that's all I'll write on that. I did enjoy this book, and I really wanted to give it three stars, but there are too many technical errors and such. Weirdly enough it seemed the second half was more polished than the first half, and Widow seemed more believable as Blade got the hang of the character. The writing became tighter, too. Widow soon decides he needs to put his head on a pillow for a few hours, asks the waitress for the location of the nearest motel, and sets out to get himself some much needed sleep.I’m at chapter 26. There’s no real story. 3 dead bodies, 1 severely wounded Deputy, a dozen missing girls and a completely racist, misogynistic, bigoted small town, with a blinkered Sheriff! Some local townspeople want to blame Muslims. The politicians want to blame guns. The outside media only care about the headlines. Widow was the guy who investigated crimes that no one wanted to know about. Sometimes they involved the most dangerous men on earth. This is further enhanced by narrator Aden Philip Ormond's excellent interpretation of this lead protagonist. The reading is well paced, not too fast, not too emotionally imbued but just right for the military trained loner rediscovering his past and his understanding of just how much he owed to his mother in the last precious moments they are able to have together. Her death is his new beginning as sets out in search of her killer. With expression and good intonation, Orson's pleasant rough velvety voice also gives individual life to each of the other characters in the book also. Writer and narrator in harmony together. Did you read all of the above? Did it seem as if I went on and on without actually Saying anything? Or, did it seem as if I’d missed a pertinent point? Or went into too much detail? Yes? Well, brace yourself, there is A LOT of that in this book! Plus, the characters are all from The Deep South - so they speak slowly - I had to adjust the narration speed to 1.2 for it to seem normal for me! (I listened to the audiobook version of this title).