Where Death Meets the Devil (Death and the Devil, #1)

by L.J. Hayward

His ISO shield in gold-plated bronze

Blade had taken down a bratva brigadier just to get Mr. Valadian alone? Who the hell was this crazy bastard?

Blade produced a roll of SAM splint and a knife.

“What am I supposed to tell Director In Charge Lund?

Juvenile reaction, but: there really needs to be a DIC King. And why, of all the initials (the majority of which I have no clue of what they stand for, is this one, which I do know, spelled out?

“Not many wanted the job of taking down an ex-Special Forces.” The HoS paused. “If required.”

So far, my biggest negative is the litter of unexplained initials and random terms in this book. Like reading one of those Brit-authored novels that ladles in enough French to eliminate any chance of fully engaging with the story, unless French is your second language.

“I wouldn’t say ‘take down’ as such, but yes, I facilitated his capture by the FSB.

offering Jack pretty much anything he wanted in order to take a field operative position with ETA.

Extraterrestrial Transmogrifying Annelid? Engorged Tentacular Anus? Exceedingly Terrifying Agency? Exorbitantly Territorial Alphabet? Extremely Tropical Atmosphere? I've got one for you: OAS: Oversupplied Alphabet Soup.

Two days later, he’d met with McIntosh and had yet to regret the decision to join ITA.

Interminably Tiresome Assholes?

“Yeah, and I like whips and chains, too,” the HoS muttered sourly.

I'd like to take whips and chains to this author. Can they not go at least one fucking chapter without the alphabet droppings? OMFG BRB ISO HEA w/o all this BS.

Valadian’s man had some training in hand to hand, but not enough. Not one of his punches landed on Blade, his kicks swinging through empty air as Blade danced around him.

Surprised you didn't mash hand-to-hand down to MMA, since you seem to be all about the alpha-bits in favor of actual full words. I thought authors were always trying to up their word count, not diminish it.

International Security Office.” Since the Office didn’t officially exist in public records and the Meta-State it operated under was an invisible entity, they used ISO as a cover for most of their intelligence-gathering actions.

Oh, lookie! At least one explained that I didn't already know.

Nikonov, for starters. He was on our active watch list for years, and then within a matter of days, the Russian FSB had found him and had him in custody.

ITA operation.

Intravenous Testosterone Administration? Itinerant Therapists' Accommodations? Incontinents Training Aardvarks?

Between house and stable were the remains of a couple of holding yards. Old palings scattered in the scrub, rusting curls of barbed wire here and there. Not far away was an old hand-cranked pump on a bore. Blade worked it up and down, a bucket under the spout, while Sheila ambled around him, begging for pats, which he offered up happily. His body glistened under a sheen of sweat, catching the dying rays of the sunset, turning him golden. A fallen angel sans wings.

Ice Station by Matthew Reilly. Not immediately familiar. Curious, Jack read the first page. Half an hour later he was no clearer on his impression of Blade. The book read like an action film—fast paced, wildly imaginative,

Kind of like this book... Interestingly, this is an actual book.

Edgy, Jack dressed swiftly, donning a DPDU the same as Blade was wearing.

Why the fuck can't you spell shit out instead of forcing the reader to look it up?

“Could you hand me the nine-sixteenths wrench?” “The what?” “The nine—” Ethan cut himself off with a sigh, pushed himself out from under the car on a little wheeled trolley, and pointed to the tool kit by Jack’s foot. “The wrench with nine-slash-sixteen on it. No, not that one, the other one. The other one. Bollocks. Just let me do it.” He grabbed the tool and rolled out of sight again.

Interesting. I'd think a car made in Europe would take metric wrenches .

Hands working assuredly on wheel and gear stick, the assassin straightened the car out. It responded fluidly, engine winding up and up in pitch, then dropping back as Ethan shifted gears, again and again. The industry of Williamson Road blurred by Jack’s window.

Another bit that started to annoy. Continually referring to Ethan Blake as "the assassin" rather than by Ethan, Blake, or just he/him. Either this usage is increasing, or it's just happened often enough for the accumulation to finally snag and bother me.

The car leaped forwards down the empty lane. By the time they reached the Neville Crawley Building, they were doing nearly eighty K/hr.

I guess almost 50 mph is pretty speedy for crashing into a building - though I gotta admit, the K/hr sounds way more impressive.

Jack pressed the injector to Ethan’s neck and the assassin gasped,

This repeated "the assassin" reference to Ethan annoys me for some reason (the why of this is less clear to me than the irritation of the horde of acronyms that require looking up because the author doesn't feel the need to spell them out or explain them, but there it is, nonetheless). She could just use "he/him/his" when it's clearly obvious, as in this sentence, who "the assassin" is, or alternately refer to Ethan by his surname.

Around the twelfth time, he nearly admitted to fucking Ethan so hard he went blind in one eye for a minute.

And here, where it's unclear whether the man who went temporarily blind is Jack or Blade, the author just uses a pronoun.