After reading consecutive slow-burn thrillers, I craved a strong dose of aggressive adrenaline rush more than anything else. I came across Mark Dawson’s The Cleaner in my local bookstore and I immediately felt this would be the right book for me.
John Milton is a black ops MI6 assassin tasked with carrying out assignments for Queen and Country, particularly missions deemed morally ambiguous or outright unethical. When a mission results in Milton taking out an innocent police officer and almost shooting a child, he decides to call it quits and seek redemption if at all possible. Control, Milton’s handler in the black ops group colloquially known as Group 15, is unhappy with his decision and puts in a plan to retire Milton with extreme measures. Meanwhile, Milton crosses paths with a young mother whose son is falling in with the wrong bunch. Desperate for atonement, Milton decides to help the family. What Milton will realize soon enough is that violence is not done with him yet. Not by a long shot.
The Cleaner is surprisingly compared to the Jack Reacher books by many readers, a comparison I do not agree with. John Milton is vastly different from Jack Reacher and more suited for the modern world especially with an espionage backdrop. Underneath the layers of espionage and action lies a beautifully expressed emotional core where Mark Dawson explores the hardships of characters of varying ages and dilemmas without error. From the confused feelings of a teenager being manipulated into joining a gang to the haunted cries of salvation from a weathered hitman, Dawson hits all the right strings to invoke the strongest emotions as you flip through the pages. The emotional center is guided by an easy-to-follow character driven narrative with realistic turns of events. John Milton is not a heartless killing machine even if inclined to do some damage. Using his head, he tries to avoid starting fights for which the repercussions will fall on the innocents. When a vicious gang boss crosses the line, the simmering energy explodes in a brutally realistic shootout where Milton goes much darker than Jack Reacher ever has. The attention to detail in the action sequences is a fantastic treat for action thriller fans and undoubtedly worth the price of admission.
The Cleaner kept me awake and active long past my bedtime with its hard-hitting story and a protagonist who captivated my thoughts with his darker than dark introduction. If a thriller has you buying its sequel even before you’re finished with the first one, it’s a special one.
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Purchase The Cleaner
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