I don’t know, for some reason this book dragged on, and wasn’t that exciting. ( )

The Rules of Wolfe – Unique and Brilliant

James Carlos Blake returns with another outstanding crime thriller or as billed border noir with The Rules of Wolfe, which is simply unique and brilliant. This is a fast paced taut thriller whose prose is muscular and it literally drips from every page dancing on the edge of civilisation. The prose gives us very clear and strong imagery we get a thriller that is violent, dark, sexy and wonderfully exciting. No words are wasted and there is no padding out the story in 258 pages Blake delivers a knockout blow after knockout blow. This is a thrilling read from start to finish that brings in the Mexican cartels and American smugglers and everything in between and surviving in the border badlands when being hunted like an animal.

Eddie Gato Wolfe wants to join the family firm and quit college, but he keeps getting told no by the whole of the family. He just cannot wait he learns what he can where he can so that he can prove himself and the family still want him to go back to college and get a degree that will not help one iota with the job. He heads south from the Texas family base down to Mexico and finds a position as a guard of a compound out in the isolated desert for the head of a Cartel known as the Company. The Company is lead by La Navaja who has a reputation for being ruthless and a very long reach.

Eddie has been told what the guards can and cannot do; approaching the guests and the Boss is one of them. Eddie falls for a girl, but not any girl, the Boss’s brother’s girl Miranda. When they are caught together he knows his only hope of survival for both of them is to get out of Mexico and in to the States. Only problem being is that there are hundreds of miles of desert between them and freedom.

Being hunted by the Company he reaches out for help to get him out of Mexico and so begins a race against time for Eddie and Miranda can they survive will they get out? As they escape the body count goes up and the Boss pulls out all the stops to find them. Whether they get out in one piece is part of the thrill as Eddie and Miranda crash through the desert in their desperate hope of survival.

This is one of the most original and exciting crime thrillers of the year that delivers on every count for the reader. No punches are pulled it is bloody and violent a true mirror of life under the cartels in Mexico. The prose gives out the such strong imagery of the sights, sounds and smells of the survival when you are being hunted like wild game. The descriptions that Blake gives are so clear you could be seeing this on the big screen and the violence is so bloody yet exciting. Reading this will give you the regret that you hadn’t found this book earlier. ( )

"The Rules of Wolfe" (RW) is somewhat reminiscent for me of "Day of the Jackal" and "The Da Vinci Code". Both were excellent chase stories, somewhat novel in their plotlines, and soon copied by a number of read-alike books. I feel RW is also very novel and well done and I rate it 4 1/2 stars. Eddie, a young man from the Texas border area, is working as a lowly guard for a Mexican cartel boss at his magnificent hacienda south of Caborca. Late one night, Eddie's interlude with one of the party girls is interrupted by the unexpected return of her kidnapper/lover. There's a fight, a dead man - the first of many, many, and the chase is on. Eddie and Miranda are on the run, the Boss vows he will have their heads as the dead man is his brother and a top lieutenant; he unleases all his resources at stopping them from crossing the border, more than 300 miles away. Airports, bus stations, and toll booths are heavily patrolled, and the escapees must resort to other modes of transport, including a particularly fascinating section when they join a group of "chickens" led by their guides toward a very remote Arizona crossing point. There are a number of encounters with bad guys along the way, and the headcount (pun) continues to grow. There is a lot more, the story is very inventive, and the flow feels natural - not relying on surprise and unlikely twists, but rather grit and determination from all the characters. The story was a tad too violent for my liking and hence it's not 5 stars, but if there is another "Wolfe" family book following this one, I will read it (there is a bit of a prequel, "The Country of the Bad Wolfes" but I will pass on that one for now.) ( )