Category: 8.5/10

In this sequel to the highly praised The Gatekeeper, Dez Limerick, one of the best new thriller heroes returns.

Desmond Aloysius Limerick (“Dez” to his friends and close personal enemies) is a man with a shadowy past, certain useful hard-won skills, and, if one digs deep enough, a reputation as a good man to have at your back. Now retired from his previous life, Dez is just a bloke with a winning smile, a bass guitar, and bullet wounds that paint a road map of past lives.

Jaleh Swann, a business journalist hot on the trail of an auditor who was mugged and killed, lands in the hospital just one day after her Portland apartment is ransacked. When Jaleh’s sister, Raziah, reaches out to an old friend for help, Dez has no choice but to answer. The Swann sisters have been pulled into a dizzying web of cover-ups and danger. At the center lies an insidious Oregon-based tech corporation, Clockjack, which has enough money and hired guns to silence just about anyone—including this rag-tag trio. Luckily, Dez’s speciality is not just to open doors, but keep them open—and protect those working to expose Clockjack’s secrets.

More stands in the way of the truth than just one corporation. When hired thugs come to the finish the job and attack the Swann sisters at the hospital, Dez does what he does best. Now, the two captured men (and the corpse Dez left behind) attract the attention of not just Clockjack, but of the Portland police, the D.E.A, and the U.S. Marshalls. Dez and the Swann sisters are on the run from powers beyond their control and means. Outnumbered, under resourced and outgunned, Dez must use all his skills to keep his friends safe and stand up to corporate conniving. After all, the one thing Clockjack didn’t count on? A good man with a simple job to do.

Review:

Action-packed, ominous, and intricate!

In this compelling second instalment in the Dez Limerick series, Deadlock, Byrne has written an adrenaline-pumping thriller that sees the arrogant, part-time musician and talented ex-mercenary Desmond Aloysius Limerick back doing what he does best when fellow musician Raziah Swann phones him for a little help when it seems that her sister has become the target of some people who would not only prefer her journalistic investigation into the successful Oregon company Clockjack Solutions to come to an end quickly, but who are more than happy to leave bodies behind in order to make that happen.

The writing is descriptive and tight. The characters are astute, tenacious, and confident. And the plot keeps you on the edge of your seat with its short, zippy, intense chapters that submerge you, page after page, into a world full of danger, deception, secrets, corruption, lies, arrogance, violence, and murder.

Overall, Deadlock is a meticulously woven, sinister, highly entertaining mystery with a good sense of urgency, great characterization, and a brisk pace that’s a fabulous addition to the Dez Limerick series and a novel that really shouldn’t be missed.

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.