This book shows an interesting approach to creating a novella. Instead of laying out the usual story arc with all the details pared down to minimum, the author simply ignores the beginning of the time line and gives us only the action part.

The problem is that in the condensing process, the author has taken out some key elements that make a novel an enjoyable read.

The personalities are masterfully filled out in rapid, bold strokes between incidents of gunfire and insane driving, but the reader would enjoy a bit more variety. We also might appreciate more levels of conflict and perhaps a touch more historical background. However, in this story, action reigns.

It starts in the middle of the fight. Wild driving, children screaming, explosions, gun cars in pursuit. Nothing wrong with that, although it does give us the feeling that we have come in on a movie somewhere past the half-way point. As the chase continues, the author feeds us bits of information to put us in the picture, but there’s never quite enough, and we’re always playing catch-up.

The plot involves a series of coincidental events, each used to increase the suspense. This makes for a repetitive pattern: The escapees get away. They regroup and relax. Then the gun cars appear from another direction and away we go again.

There are flashes of setting description, mapping the roadway where the next ambush will play out, but it’s like looking at the jungle through a telescope; there isn’t enough peripheral information to put it into perspective. It is probably petty of me to mention, but this makes it easy for the author to be vague about the exact path of the action, because readers don’t have enough information to argue.

I really enjoyed the ending. I won’t give it away, but it was so obvious that a Happily Ever After was out of reach, I assumed the author would disappoint us with a deus ex machina finish. He didn’t. He ended with a plausible and unexpected solution, complete with a dash of irony and all the ends tied up neatly. How does he do it? The book’s only eighty pages long. Read it and find out.

A novella for Action/Adventure fans who only want the action. It would make an excellent final third to a full-length Military Action novel.

Four stars.

This review was originally posted on Readsy Discovery.