The Silenced by Brett Battles

Jonathan Quinn is a professional “cleaner,” which means it’s his job to makes things, usually bodies, disappear. It’s a crucial function, but one that usually allows Quinn and his crew to stay out of the direct line of fire since their job doesn’t begin until the operation they’ve been hired to clean up after has ended.

The Silenced, the fourth entry in the Quinn series (following The Cleaner, The Deceived, and Shadow of Betrayal), finds Quinn and his crew hired to handle a multi-operation job. First, there’s the matter of a long dead body in London a client wants removed from its resting place before the building serving as its tomb is demolished. Sounds simple enough.

And then there’s the matter of cleaning up after a few interconnected operations in several different locations in the U.S. A bit more involved, but still relatively straightforward. That is until while cleaning up after the first U.S. job someone else shows up at the job site, a remote location they shouldn’t have any idea even exits. Quinn follows the uninvited guest, a mysterious woman, back to her car and overhears her speaking Russian to a companion before they drive away.

When the same woman shows up again at a job clear across the country, and before the hit is even carried out this time, it becomes apparent there is another team working from the same list as Quinn and his client. Stranger still, the Russian woman and her team also appear to be interested in that dead body in London. Whose toes are Quinn inadvertently stepping on, and how far will they go to get Quinn out of their way?

Those are questions that Quinn desperately needs the answers to if he’s to live up to his professional obligations without compromising himself or his client. The professional, however, suddenly gets very personal when Quinn realizes someone has been poking around in a past he thought he’d taken extraordinary measures to bury. And though Quinn’s past has been hinted at in previous books, in The Silenced past collides head-on with present when Quinn’s mother and sister are targeted as a means to try to manipulate and control him.

Author Brett Battles has really created something special in Jonathan Quinn. Electrifying and intriguing from the very first moment he appeared on the page in The Cleaner, Quinn has only continued to evolve, revealing ever more complex facets to his personality with each outing. By placing Quinn’s family in jeopardy, Battles allows the reader to get a look into the past that helped shape Quinn into the man as we know him. It also puts the normally calm, cool, and in control Quinn off-stride and in the position of relying even more than usual on his teammates Orlando (also Quinn’s girlfriend) and Nate. Nate in particular really gets a chance to shine this time out when he’s thrust into the role of serving as protector for Quinn’s estranged sister.

As with previous entries in the series Battles continues to show a masterful understanding of pacing, carefully working both flashbacks to Quinn’s past and crucial information about the team’s current challenges into the plot while always moving the story forward, all with enough gun fights, car chases, twists, and double-crosses to keep the reader on the edge of their seat. Longtime readers will enjoy yet another tightly crafted story, but they will relish the revealing look into Quinn’s past. And you don’t have to have read the prior entries in the series to enjoy The Silenced (though they’re excellent and you really should), so if this is the first you’ve heard of Jonathan Quinn please feel free to use The Silenced as your gateway into this wonderful series.

The Silenced is available from Dell (ISBN: 978-0440245674).