Lad Lit Book Reviews: Fear by Jeff Abbott

From the man who has brought us the one-worded-book-titled blockbusters Run and Panic has delivered yet another one-worded-book-titled blockbuster in Fear! Jeff Abbott take a bow. Again!

I’m not sure it’s possible for me to read a Jeff Abbott novel and not like it, so much so that I got my wife into his books and now she is recommending novels of his to me like she found the man first. Back off wifey, Jeff is mine! Not in a creepy fan stalker-ish type of way though, or when a man loves another man situation, or… maybe I should just strop right there!

Now where was I? Yes, a book review! A book review of Fear – the latest Abbott instalment I exposed my eyeballs to and how grateful they were. This time round we enter the world of Miles Kendrick and his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) hell that has gripped his life since he was involved in a shootout that left his best friend dead. Now in the witness protection programme and in hiding from the mobsters he once worked for, Miles is desperately trying to conquer his demons with the aid of his psychiatrist, Dr Allison Vance.

But when Dr Vance’s office is blown to smithereens after claiming she could help Kendrick with a new medical treatment, all hell breaks loose! Suddenly Miles finds himself on the run with two unlikely accomplices in reality TV star Celeste Brant and ex-soldier Nathan Ruiz – both fellow PTSD sufferers who were being treated by Dr Vance with a new experimental drug called Frost.

Bound together by fear and the paranoia that they can’t trust anyone, they find themselves on the run from those who believe the trio orchestrated the explosion and have obtained research and secret formula for this new drug which is worth millions of dollars. A host of killers and bad guys will stop at nothing to get at them, and none more so than Dennis Groote, an ex-FBI agent employed by a pharmaceutical company, who is desperate to get his hands on Frost to help cure his own daughter of her PTSD hell.

Groote is the perfect example of everything that Abbott is good at as a storyteller. Yes, you empathise with the main character but boy do you like reading what the bad guys are up to. Groote is one tough mofo, but his intentions are honourable even if he bends the rules like Beckham bends a football to get what he wants! You are torn from hoping he is able to save his daughter to praying he doesn’t catch up with Miles because of the fear of what he’d do to him!

It’s another big seal of approval from Books For Men Book Reviews for this one and if I've said it once, I’ll say it again – if you haven’t read a Jeff Abbott book then get yo ass off your seat and go buy one. Now!