{"id":14876,"date":"2020-12-14T18:43:50","date_gmt":"2020-12-14T23:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=14876"},"modified":"2020-12-14T18:43:50","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T23:43:50","slug":"quantum-kill-by-blake-banner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=14876","title":{"rendered":"‘Quantum Kill,’ by Blake Banner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf course you are. You\u2019re James Bond cleverly disguised as an inbred redneck.\u201d<\/p>

\u201cThanks, I love you too. Actually, in my experience, most rednecks I have met were very fine people with solid values. And the worst inbreds I\u2019ve met were among the European aristocracies and the Boston Brahmins.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Harry Bauer, hero<\/strong> of Blake Banner\u2019s Cobra series, is an assassin working for a private security firm that contracts to the government (for deniability). He is deadly and efficient and ruthless, but he has a code \u2013 he only kills the worst of the worst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So he\u2019s surprised when, as Quantum Kill<\/a><\/em> opens, his bosses call him out of a well-earned vacation, asking him to do a job entirely outside his wheelhouse. There\u2019s a woman (they won\u2019t tell him who) at a certain place in Canada. Harry is to pick her up and transport her to Washington DC by a certain date, by a devious route he can work out for himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he finally meets the woman, she\u2019s a puzzle. She\u2019s attractive, but strangely distant and affectless. She makes no effort to make friends, but soon they have more to worry about than their relations, when hit teams locate them \u2013 they can\u2019t figure out how \u2013 and Harry has to do what he does best to keep her alive. It gets more puzzling when he figures out that the hit teams are CIA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As they take a roundabout route as far out of their way as the Azores, the barriers between them start to break down. But more is going on than Harry and his employers have been told, and in the end he will resolve the problem through doing what he does best, in a shocking but oddly satisfying climax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve read some of Blake Banner\u2019s books outside the Cobra series, and I was disappointed in certain attitudes and plot elements, especially in religious matters. But in this series, I haven\u2019t had that problem \u2013 such opinions as Harry Bauer expresses generally please me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m torn a bit as to how strongly I should recommend this series to our readers. In terms of reading pleasure, it\u2019s top notch. My interest never flagged from the first page to the last (and as I grow older, flagging interest is a problem I have increasingly as I read). But the violence is harsh and stark and uncompromising. I feel a certain amount of guilt for enjoying it so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But enjoy it I do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cOf course you are. You\u2019re James Bond cleverly disguised as an inbred redneck.\u201d \u201cThanks, I love you too. Actually, in my experience, most rednecks I have met were very fine people with solid values. And the worst inbreds I\u2019ve met were among the European aristocracies and the Boston Brahmins.\u201d Harry Bauer, hero of Blake Banner\u2019s … Continue reading ‘Quantum Kill,’ by Blake Banner<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[3494,3495,3553],"class_list":["post-14876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-blake-banner","tag-harry-bauer","tag-quantum-kill"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14877,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14876\/revisions\/14877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}