The killing kind by Chris Holm

Michael Hendricks has a unique set of skills gained through years of service in the military, skills that are easily transferred to the world of professional hit men.  Hendricks doesn't kill at random or indiscriminately, he has a very niche market for his hits - he only kills other hit men.  He is a ghost that has taken out some pretty nasty killers over the years, but his skill and success rate has brought him attention that he could really do without.  When you are working as a hit man the perfect cover is when the world thinks you are already dead.

Hendricks has come to the attention of a Special Agent Charlotte Thompson of the FBI, who has spent years hunting for her 'ghost' - a killer that no one believed existed, at first anyway.  With another hit man dead, other Agents are starting to take her seriously.  On the other side of the world another kind of hunter is hot on the trail of Hendricks, a hit man employed to take out the hit man who has cut a devastating swath of destruction through the criminal community.  It is a race against time as Agent Thompson and the hit man try and track Hendricks down - one to catch him and one to kill him.

I picked up The killing kind after seeing it on a recommended book list, and while I normally don't stray too far into the thriller genre this was a book that had me hooked from the start.  One of the biggest hooks for me was the way the story jumped straight in, and the way that Chris Holm has crafted the character of Michael Hendricks.  Hendricks is damaged but not completely broken - he seems to be a solid representation of soldiers who have returned from armed conflict overseas.  There are echoes of real veterans in his character, and some of the other characters in his world.

Without spoiling the little twists and turns that make up this story it is believable and a rather enjoyable game of cat and mouse - or maybe that should be cats and mouse because Hendricks is hiding from not one, but two hunters.  It is a little unpolished in some places, but was a thoroughly enjoyable read.

If you like this book then try:

• Breaking Creed by Alex Kava
• The basement by Stephen Leather
• Eeny meeny by M.J. Arlidge
• Vodka doesn't freeze by Leah Giarratano
• The surgeon by Tess Gerritsen
• One step too far by Tina Seskis
• Level 26: Dark origins by Anthony E. Zuiker and Duane Swierczynski
• Never never by James Patterson and Candice Fox
• Kill switch by Neal Baer & Jonathan Greene
• The edge of normal by Carla Norton
• City of fear by Alafair Burke
• Now you see her by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
• The slaughter man by Tony Parsons

Reviewed by Brilla