Reviewed by Dan

 CONTENT WARNINGS:

Contains too many triggers to list. Please pay attention to the items I list in my review below.   This book would not be for everyone.

 

TITLE:  Haven’s Creed

AUTHOR:     Parker Williams

PUBLISHER:  Self-Published

LENGTH:     256 pages

BLURB:

An act of violence destroys his family and ends the life he knows. To escape his haunted past, he joins the military, where, as a sniper, he is trained to kill with precision and detachment. When a covert organization offers him a new purpose, he becomes Haven, an operative devoted to protecting the innocent when he can and avenging them when he cannot.

After ten years of battling the evil in the world, the life no longer holds the attraction or meaning it once had, and he’s ready to walk away. Then he meets Samuel, a young man forced from the age of twelve to work as a sex slave. If ever a man had a need for Haven, it is this one.

Yet nothing about this growing relationship is one-sided. Sammy gives Haven a stability he’s never known, and Haven becomes the rock upon which Sammy knows he can depend.

When Sammy reveals something about the enemy Haven has been hunting for months, Sammy fears it will destroy what they’ve built and he’ll lose his home in Haven’s heart.

REVIEW:

I loved this book. I would say it is one of my favorite books in quite some time. It is harsh and it is brutal. The story is about a killer who kills people in increasingly brutal ways as the book progresses. I love the MC.

The beginning of the book jumps right into an assassination.  I’ve included an excerpt from Chapter One below my review to give you a taste.  In that chapter we meet the main character while he is taking out a bad, bad man who has gotten away with evil for far too long.

As the book progresses, just as we get to wondering who this man is and what his background is, we get the backstory.  After a very horrific event in his childhood, a young man joins the military and is eventually recruited by the secret government agency he is working for in that first scene of the book.

I would have to say this book did the best job that I can ever remember reading at putting me so completely into the shoes of a contract killer taking out evil doers. Parker Williams sure can write! I fell into this story and didn’t come out until the end of the book. It kept my attention, making it hard for me to put it down!

I want to strongly warn you all that there are definitely some triggers for some folks in this story. The crime organization that is the foe in this book deals in everything from drugs, to kiddie porn and child sex slavery, to brutal dog fights. There are myriad references to dead children’s bodies, to horrid acts perpetuated on the children, and some really unsavory criminal types. There are many references to brutal murders, literal piles of dead children’s bodies and horrible sex acts against children. There are references to brutal dog fighting. That was one of my favorite parts of the book…when the dogs got their revenge…must stop…the urge to keep raving about this stuff is so strong!

I loved this book, and I very highly recommend it. It is a dark story with not much of any romance, although there is a love story of sorts that runs through it. I’m not even sure where I would classify it. Take my advice, pick it up today if you’re looking for a great dark read. I’m sure you will enjoy it. If you are the type of reader who likes sweetness and light, with rainbows…and skipping…then you should run away very fast, because this book is not for you.

For those of you who haven’t run screaming the other way…I’ve included an excerpt from Chapter One below. I dare you to read it and not have to hit one click right away!

RATING:

EXCERPT: 

Chapter One

Decades of grime, caked and baked in the summer sun, crusted the filthy rooftop. I shuddered at the thought of what I might be crawling around in. Either way, considering the eddies of snow and ice swirling around in the bitter cold breeze freezing my exposed skin, I almost wished for the heat of summer now. Better to be up here sweating my balls off than freezing them.

Winds off Lake Michigan could be brutal, but they were even worse at the top of the building I’d selected. I’d chosen a tight spot, especially for a man my size. Still, it offered me the best possible vantage point. My muscles cramped as I slithered forward on my stomach, and the gravel bit into the skin where my shirt had pulled free from my vest. The edge of the roof held a myriad of pipes and ductwork. Great for cover, not so good for aiming. I pulled myself in between two pipes that gave me line of sight of the house where the deal would go down. It would be an awkward shot, especially given the weather, but I’d taken worse. My breath fogged the lenses of my goggles a bit, but not enough to matter. At least not to my target.

My fingers stiffened as I slid the chamber into the rifle, the fingerless gloves providing little protection against the elements. It reminded me why I didn’t live in Chicago anymore. I hated winter with a passion. Give me my home in Florida or the one I kept in Arizona and I would be much more content.

The car pulled up a few moments later, drawing my attention back to my assignment. I glanced at my watch. Early. I hated when targets didn’t stick to a timetable. It was very rude. The driver ran around and opened John Dunkirk’s door, allowing the dead man walking to slide out of the backseat and step onto the sidewalk where he waited as Kenneth Alamo came out of the modest house. My fingers itched. Alamo had been in and out of prison for possession and distribution. His name should be next to Dunkirk’s, but he wasn’t my target. There would certainly be a reckoning for him at a later date. Maybe this event would set him on the straight and narrow. Unlikely, but in my line of work, stranger things happened.

While Alamo and Dunkirk exchanged handshakes and a brief bro hug, the driver closed the car door then pulled a case from the trunk, placed it on the hood and stepped away. I took note of the briefcase he carried and I tensed. The poison housed in the innocuous looking satchel was the reason I’d been sent. Twenty-seven people had died, that we knew of. Almost half of them were school kids, some as young as seven.

My employer frowned on that and had sent me to get the justice their families wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. The fact Dunkirk had avoided prison was reason enough he had come to our attention and had gotten his name on a death warrant.

Dunkirk cracked the lid just enough so the other guy could look into it. I imagined the buyer being gobsmacked at the amount of crap crammed into the small case. Enough to make him a shitload of money, and at the same time, give people on the streets their last fix.

While they were both occupied, I took aim. No one noticed the red dot on Dunkirk’s back. I squeezed the trigger in one fluid, practiced motion. The explosion of air that echoed off the rooftop announced his imminent death. The moment his chest exploded, chaos filled the streets. Men swarmed from the nearby building like so many cockroaches. The listening device I’d planted in Dunkirk’s car allowed me to hear the barked orders to find whoever was responsible and deal with him. By the time they got their shit together, I would be back in the shadows and on my way home.

I pulled out my phone and tapped out a quick text message.

“It’s done. Next?”

The reply came back a moment later. “Police converging. Go now. Talk later.”

I slipped the phone back into my pocket. I could hear the sirens in the distance. They’d arrest the trash, but the man responsible for all the death through the poison he sold on the streets would never have been taken to prison. His lawyers would have guaranteed it, just as they had the last four times he’d beat the rap the government put together. Dunkirk had enough dirt on a handful of key politicians to ensure he’d live to spread his filth on the streets again. That was why they’d sent me in. If there was one thing I knew with absolute certainty, dead men told no tales and, in Dunkirk’s case, sold no drugs.

Of course, I wasn’t done with Mr. Dunkirk.

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