Day of Wrath is the perfect marriage of tactical action with a gritty crime narrative that slingshots the readers into a compelling emotional tale of vengeance and violence with shocking developments.
Readers are introduced to Caleb and Krissy Rhoades, slowly coming to terms with rifts in their marriage. Caleb is an ex-Marine trying to keep his struggling tactical training school from drowning in debt whereas Krissy has left her military life behind completely for a domestic but spotlight-life. It’s a slow-moving disaster but the intensity flares up when Krissy is viciously attacked. With police investigation leading to dead ends, Caleb and Krissy take matters into their own hands. Packing up on hardware and a hankering for vengeance, they set off on seemingly different paths but all clues lead them down the same dangerous road with tons of shootouts, explosions, and sheer death. What makes this even more treacherous is the constant uncertainty of whether they can even trust each other to begin with.
Matthew Cricchio’s amalgamation of the Rhoades’ tactical background in the military with familial relations to the crime family and a dangerous war spilling from the headlines taking place on US soil elevates the reading experience and breaks down the barriers of being restricted to a particular niche in the thriller genre. The narrative succeeds at entertaining the reader not just with its fast-paced nature as Caleb and Krissy investigate the crime unhindered by red-tape, but also by the emotional resonance of the helplessness the characters feel being stuck in precarious and distressing situations. It’s a multi-layered narrative that examines not just the breakdown of their marriage but also the revival of their spark as bullets fly and priorities become clearer in the finality of combat. The action is immersive, deliberate, and precise in the machinations of the weaponry and the characters that wield them. Cricchio puts you right in the hot seat as the Rhoades switch places from prey to hunter. All of this is spiced with doubts regarding the true intentions of the characters as they find each other in their crosshairs.
Matthew Cricchio is a tremendous writer with an eye for grounding great stories in the modern-day era with raw emotional resonance and crisp combat, his prose building towards an explosive finale that will keep that action fanatic in you satisfied as much as the general reading spirit searching for an overwhelmingly satisfying read.
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