Title: The GatekeeperAuthor: James Byrne
Series: Dez Limerick #1
Published by: Minotaur Books on Jun. 7, 2022
Genres: Mystery/Thriller
Pages: 336
Format: ARC, Paperback
Source: Minotaur Books
Book Rating: 8.5/10
James Byrne’s The Gatekeeper introduces Dez Limerick in the most anticipated new thriller in years.
A highly trained team of mercenaries launches a well-planned, coordinated attack on a well-guarded military contractor – but they didn’t count on one thing, the right man being in the wrong place at the right time.
Desmond Aloysius Limerick (“Dez” to all) is a retired mercenary, and enthusiastic amateur musician, currently in Southern California, enjoying the sun and sitting in on the occasional gig, when the hotel he’s at falls under attack. A skilled team attempts to kidnap the Chief legal counsel of Triton Expeditors, a major military contractor – in fact, Petra Alexandris is the daughter of the CEO – but their meticulously-planned, seamlessly executed scheme runs into the figurative ‘spanner-in-the-works,’ Dez himself.
After foiling the attack, and with nothing better to do, Dez agrees to help Alexandris with another problem she’s having – someone has embezzled more than a billion dollars from her company and left very few tracks behind. But Dez is a gatekeeper – one who opens doors and keeps them open – and this is just a door of another kind. And the door he opens leads to a dangerous conspiracy involving media manipulation, militias, an armed coup, and an attempt to fracture the United States themselves. There’s only one obstacle between the conspirators and success – and that is Dez, The Gatekeeper.
Review:
Tight, sinister, and suspenseful!
The Gatekeeper is the start of a brand-new series by Byrne that sweeps you away to California, where the cocky, confident, retired mercenary Dez ‘The Gatekeeper’ Limerick finds himself inadvertently swept up in the investigation of an embezzlement and conspiracy scheme involving military contractor, Triton Expeditors when one night after playing a local musical gig he successfully thwarts the attempted kidnapping of their CLO Petra Alexandris.
The prose is direct and well-paced. The characters are resourceful, talented, and committed. And the plot is a thrilling tale full of greed, power, deception, abuse, violence, manipulation, passion, politics, murder, and corruption.
Overall, The Gatekeeper is a darkly comedic, edgy, action-packed thriller that kept me highly entertained from the very first page and is without a doubt an exceptionally promising debut by Byrne that left me more than a little eager to read what Dez Limerick manages to get mixed up in next.
This novel is available now.
Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.
Thank you to St. Martin’s Press – Minotaur Press for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.
