Killer Instincts gets its first five-star review!

The second review to come in for KILLER INSTINCTS:

At its heart Killer Instincts is a coming of age story, chronicling the journey that William Lynch takes from his beginnings as a ne'er-do-well rich kid to his destiny as a hard, cold-blooded operator. We first meet William as he is today--a mercenary on a mission to rescue some young women from slavers on a cargo ship at sea. He's a stone-cold killer and a veteran of this sort of operation. He gets the job done with brutal efficiency. Afterwards, William reflects on how he started down this path, and this is where the real story begins.

Cut to the spring of 2001, where William's father, a District Attorney in New England, is murdered along with William's mother and sister. The culprits are the Paggiano mafia family, against whom William's father was the lead prosecutor in a rape and murder case. Fortunately for William, he is on spring break in Paris and is forgotten by the killers.

Up to this point William has little direction in life, simply going through the motions of college, but the murders galvanize him into action. He is bent on vengeance, and his Vietnam-vet Uncle Jamie hooks him up with Richard, a mysterious Texan badass who is firmly entrenched in the shadow world of extra-legal operations. William hires Richard to train him in the skills he needs to wipe out the Paggiano family on his own.

Richard turns out to be one scary dude to learn from. While William remains committed to his goal, more than once he begins to feel that he might have gotten in over his head...

His training complete, William gets down to business. You're rooting for William to exact his revenge, but there looms a nagging feeling that he may lose his soul in the process. William starts out merely wanting vengeance for his family, but will he go too far?

Killer Instincts is an action-packed thriller spiced with gritty realism. This is a book that has you nodding your head with grim satisfaction every time a bad guy gets what coming to him. There is plenty of violence, sex, and profanity, but it's never gratuitous. Like a professional operator, Badelaire gets the job done and has no regrets.

Dan, thank you for that great review!