The Killing Season: A Novel

by Mason Cross

Overview

"Pulse-pounding. Mason Cross launches into The Killing Season with no-holds-barred, as he deftly combines an adrenaline rush plot with one of the best new series characters since Jack Reacher. Prepare to read all night."—Lisa Gardner, New York Times bestselling author

The first thing you should know about me is that my name is not Carter Blake.

When Caleb Wardell, the infamous 'Chicago Sniper,' escapes from death row two weeks before his execution, the FBI calls on the services of Carter Blake, a man with certain specialized talents whose skills lie in finding those who don't want to be found. A man to whom Wardell is no stranger.

Along with Elaine Banner, an ambitious special agent juggling life as a single mother with her increasingly high-flying career, Blake must track Wardell down as he cuts a swathe across America, apparently killing at random.


But Blake and Banner soon find themselves sidelined from the case. And as they try desperately to second-guess a man who kills purely for the thrill of it, they uncover a hornets' nest of lies and corruption. Now Blake must break the rules and go head-to-head with the FBI if he is to stop Wardell and expose a deadly conspiracy that will rock the country.

Slick, fast-paced and assured, The Killing Season is the first novel in the gripping new Carter Blake series.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781605989525
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	02/01/2016
Series:	Carter Blake Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	980,090
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Mason Cross is the author of The Killing Season,The Samaritan, and Winterlong. You can find out more by visiting his website at www.masoncross.net. He lives in Scotland.

Editorial Reviews

My kind of book.

Lee Child

Pulse-pounding. Mason Cross launches into The Killing Season with no-holds-barred, as he deftly combines an adrenaline rush plot with one of the best new series characters since Jack Reacher. Prepare to read all night.”

Lisa Gardner

Mason Cross has created an enigmatic character in Carter Blake. The writing is taut, intelligent, oozes suspense. A highly impressive debut novel.

Matt Hilton

Keeps the pace breakneck, the suspense high, and the body-count higher.

Booklist

12/22/2014
Cross’s engrossing debut, the first in a new crime series, introduces Carter Blake, a man without a home and with no personal ties, but with a knack for finding people who don’t want to be found. Blake agrees to help the FBI locate serial killer Caleb Wardell (dubbed the Chicago Sniper by the media), who escaped from a prisoner-transport van en route from Chicago to the federal correction complex at Terre Haute, Ind., where he was due to be executed in two weeks. Elaine Banner, an FBI special agent, starts feeling conflicted when Blake’s instincts prove to be more reliable than those of FBI man Steve Castle, who’s calling the shots on the investigation. The body count grows as Wardell goes on a rampage in several states. The suspense builds all the way to the breathtaking ending. Readers will look forward to seeing more of Blake. Agent: Luigi Bonomi, LBA (U.K.). (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 2014-12-06
A freelance soldier of fortune signs on with the FBI to catch an escaped convict, a Marine-trained sniper who's picked up where he left off five years ago, in Cross' slam-bang debut. Ironically, Caleb Wardell isn't even the target of the escape. Russian mobster Vitali Korakovski has his eye on the prisoner who's being transported along with him, Clarence Mitchell, who's been preparing to roll over on Korakovski. The resulting carnage, however, leaves Wardell the last man standing, and he promptly high-tails it out of Chicago to resume doing what he's already done 19 times. The FBI's Chicago Special Agent in Charge Walter Donaldson, who doesn't want news of the escape to reach the media (yeah, right), reaches out to Carter Blake, the on-again, off-again narrator who assures us in the opening sentence that that's not his real name. Blake's unlikely success in predicting that Wardell will head to Fort Dodge, Iowa, and Lincoln, Nebraska, where he duly executes two more victims, earns him the trust of FBI agent Elaine Banner, who despite (or because of) her ambition, has been something of an outlier among bigger Feebs like Donaldson, veteran Dave Edwards and Steve Castle, head of the task force charged with bringing in Wardell. None of this matters, because it's obvious from the beginning that even though Blake is a much less impressive figure than the truly scary Wardell, he's the only one tough and wily enough to have a prayer against him. Cross provides a gratifyingly high body count, ruthlessly efficient action sequences and all the other thrills you'd expect of the superior popcorn movie you can expect his first novel to spawn, right down to a nifty extra twist in the tail.

Kirkus Reviews

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