Details about the first must-read thriller of 2020, Brad Taylor’s Hunter Killer, have finally been announced, and fans of his New York Times bestselling Pike Logan series are in for one hell of a ride when it lands in bookstores on January 7th.
Last time around, Pike, Jennifer Cahil, and the rest of the Taskforce were seen chasing down a conspiracy involving North Korea auctioning off sensitive U.S. intelligence—only to realize that the real prize up for grabs was a new lethal substance called Red Mercury—in Taylor’s heart-thumping 2019 thriller Daughter of War.
This time out, Pike and the gang find themselves being hunted by characters returning from Daughter of War, and having just finished my review copy . . . let’s just say, it’s Taylor’s best work to date—and that’s really saying something when you consider that he absolutely owns the military thriller genre, and it’s not close.
“Hunter Killer is the 14th book in the Pike Logan series, and while the team has taken some hits here and there, in the end, things are always tied up in a neat bow. The real world doesn’t work that way,” said Taylor, speaking exclusively to The Real Book Spy. “Whether it’s terrorist sub-state groups or state organizations, they are always bigger than the individual action of the novels, and sooner or later, there has to be someone who wants revenge.”
“I decided to explore that theme in this novel – and it catapults off actions that occurred in Daughter of War. The book stands alone, but the bad guys from DOW are now hunting Pike Logan, realizing he’s more than just a lone tough guy.”
“When I started writing Hunter Killer,” continued Taylor, “there was a lot of reporting about SOF operators accused of war crimes, and many wanted to give them a pass precisely because they were SOF. At the end of the day, we have to be better than the enemy we’re fighting. Our enemy doesn’t live in our democracy, and doesn’t live by our rules, but we still have to be better. Pike wants to release the beast, but the edge between being a white hat and black hat is very thin. And Pike Logan is forced to test that edge . . .”
Check out the official plot details and cover art below.
Pike Logan tracks highly-trained Russian assassins to Brazil in this blistering, action-packed thriller from New York Times bestselling author and former Special Forces Officer Brad Taylor.
Pike Logan and the Taskforce were once the apex predators, an unrivaled hunting machine that decimated those out to harm the United States, but they may have met their match. While Pike Logan and Jennifer Cahill prepare to join their team on a counter-terrorist mission in the triple frontier—the lawless tri-border region where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet—they are targeted in Charleston, South Carolina. A vicious explosion kills a friend, and the perpetrators have set it up to look like an accident. While the authorities believe this was not foul play, Pike knows the attack was meant for him.
When he loses contact with the team in South America, Pike is convinced he and the Taskforce are under assault. His men are the closest thing to family that Pike has, which means he will do anything, even ignore direct orders to stand down, to find them. Pike and Jennifer head to Brazil to investigate their disappearance and run headlong into a crew of Russian assassins. Within days they are entangled in a byzantine scheme involving Brazilian politics and a cut-throat battle for control of offshore oil fields.
Forged in combat, the Russians are the equal of anything the Taskforce has encountered before, but they make a mistake in attacking Pike’s team, because Pike has a couple of elite Israeli assassins of his own. And Pike will stop at nothing to protect his family.
Readers looking for something to help hold them over until January can pick up Exit Fee, a brand new Pike Logan short story (which also includes an excerpt of Hunter Killer), available on October 29, 2019 on Kindle and e-book.
We’ll have plenty of coverage of this title leading up to its release, so make sure to check back in the coming months for more information. In the meantime, Hunter Killer, Brad Taylor’s highly-anticipated 14th Pike Logan thriller, is now available for pre-order here, or anywhere else books are sold. For more details, make sure you’re following Taylor on Facebook, Twitter, and his official website.
Praised as “One of the hardest working, most thoughtful, and fairest reviewers out there” by #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Scottoline, Ryan Steck has “quickly established himself as the authority on mysteries and thrillers” (Author A.J. Tata). Steck also works full-time as a freelance editor and pens a monthly thriller column for CrimeReads. For more information, be sure to follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He currently lives in Southwest Michigan with his wife and their six children.