The Guardian feels like a personal thriller for Joshua Hood, with explosive action on every page, characters with resonating drives, and a strong setup for a potentially long running series. This one is for the hardcore action aficionados who yearn for books powered by haughty non-stop action.
Travis Lane lives by the creed of the elite Air Force Pararescue, “These things we do, that others may live”. He has lived by it through the worst of situations on the battlefield. But when he retires because of an injury, he’s forced to look for other measures to support his sister who just lost her husband in the line of duty on a mission that Lane was part of. Salvation comes in the form of a job offer from Broadside Solutions, a company specializing in protecting and extracting its clients from all sorts of dangers. As soon as he signs up for a hefty care package, Lane and his new team are sent all the way to Democratic Republic of Congo to find and retrieve a kidnapped American. He’s sent into the depths of hell to pull off a mission where the battlefield isn’t the only minefield he must circumvent.
Travis Lane is a huge departure from Adam Hayes, the unkillable protagonist in Hood’s Treadstone books. Even with the battle-ready skills of being a warrior, Lane embodies the impression of being a guardian more than a killer. Imbued with Hood’s own expertise in the tradecraft, Lane strikes you as a bona-fide character with a solid foundation of his morals that make him stand out as exemplary without being unrealistically so. With the spotlight on a Pararescue specialist, Hood adds a distinctive protagonist to the roster of memorable military-enlisted heroes in the thrillerverse.
Speaking of the action, Hood once again delivers his promise of non-stop breathtaking action sequences with all the tactical nuances of experts. The bullets zinging past, the fiery heat from huge explosions, every stealthy footfall, all exhibit a worldly weight of realism that go a long way to making the action all the more realistic and impactful. From the moment Lane and his team step into the African jungle, the action picks up almost immediately and the narrative flows through with butter-like-ease of one violent crisis after another. Put simply, there’s really no good spot in the book to take a break because the constant action keeps you energized all the way through.
The Guardian is an explosive tactical adventure that infuses emotions, family, and moral values into a spectacular action-fest ride. Joshua Hood has given the world yet another emphatic hero to rally behind. If there is one common feeling this book will leave you with, its that there needs to be more of Travis Lane in the future.
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