A Wanted Woman by Eric Jerome Dickey-a review

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A WANTED WOMAN
by Eric Jerome Dickey

ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date April 15, 2014

She is a woman of a thousand faces, an assassin who could be anyone, anywhere.

The Trinidad contract was supposed to be simple: to make a living man become a dead man. When the job goes bad under the watchful eye of a bank security camera, there is nowhere for agent MX-401, known as Reaper, to hide from the fearsome local warlords, the Laventille Killers.

Her employers, the Barbarians, send her to Barbados, the next island over, barely two hundred miles away, with the LK’s in hot pursuit of the woman who took many of their own. With the scant protection of a dank safe house, no passport, and no access to funds, an island paradise becomes her prison.

While she trawls for low-profile assignments to keep her skills sharp and a few dollars in her pocket, Reaper discovers that family ties run deep, on both sides of the fight. Will the woman everyone wants, who has lived countless lives in the service of others, finally discover who she really is?

REVIEW: A WANTED WOMAN is the latest release from author Eric Jerome Dickey. It is a storyline of suspense, mystery, violence and intrigue. Reaper is a female assassin-trained by the best to be the best and no one can stop the Reaper when death is at hand. Her latest assignment takes her to the British West Indie Islands of Trinidad and Barbados.

The focus of the storyline is our heroine. She is a skilled killing machine who leaves a path of death and destruction in her wake. When her most recent job goes horribly wrong Reaper is abandoned by her keepers on an island where the drug kingpins and money launderers want her dead. She went against orders and found herself struggling in a world with no money, no food and no support. As Reaper begins to dig deeper, she will discover that the people at the top had used her as a pawn in a bigger game.

Eric Jerome Dickey has written in intriguing, compelling, and graphically violent storyline where the slums and back alleys of a beautiful vacation destination take center stage in a war between the rich and powerful. The author uses the anthropological history of the islands to create the sociological backdrop for a storyline steeped in physical and sexual violence. Everyone and anyone will become a target-no one is safe; no one can be trusted; everyone is the enemy.

The secondary characters are over the top caricatures and the epitome of evil-they are beyond colorful; beyond reprehensible; beyond belief. The colloquial speech patterns and language of the islands is used as the building blocks for a story beyond our imagination. A WANTED WOMAN is a fast paced, action packed, storyline with graphic imagery, graphic violence, and will not be to everyone’s liking. This is not a storyline of hearts and flowers-the romance of the islands is not a part of the travel itinerary-you will not fall in love with this vacation destination.

Throughout the storyline much of the back history will be revealed through memories, flashbacks and story telling. The reader will be pulled into one woman’s world where family meant everything but was nothing; where love never existed; where DNA is only a name on a piece of paper.

A WANTED WOMAN is a storyline written in alternating first person POV (Reaper) and third person; it is a story rife in discrimination, destruction and death, abhorrent violence and improbable feats. It is a story where a country struggles with its’ own identity; where its’ people are caught between two worlds; where a young woman is thrown into the lion’s cage and barely survives. The story does not end with a happily ever after but a happily ever after-for now. There is definitely more story to tell and I am hoping that Eric Jerome Dickey is willing to part with some more of his imaginative storylines and colorful characters-he is a master story teller.

Copy supplied by the publisher through Netgalley.

Reviewed by Sandy