A battle of wits between two men, once as close as brothers, now on opposite sides.
John Hayes betrayed his own soldiers on a mission; returning to the United States, he seeks revenge on his accusers and hoping to reconnect with his wife and daughter.
Thomas Byrne, once a combat medic, is now a surgeon tapped by the government to help capture his onetime friend.

Relentless, surprising, and riveting, this tale will keep readers on the edge of their seats as the nonstop action offers surprises, plot twists, and plenty of adventure.

Recommended. ( )

I expected your usual ho hum action story but this one keeps your adrenaline up from beginning to end. Good plot, great background research and exacting forensic detail with many twists and turns but never off target. Once you start to read it you can’t put it down. I know I didn’t. The ending is a surprise. A good read.

I was provided with an electronic copy in return for an honest review. ( )

Oh wow I liked this book. I read it almost straight through, even staying up when I should have been sleeping. Yes it is a military thriller, yes it is about terrorism and bad guys and all that stuff we have read about dozens of times before, but "Cold Barrel Zero" feels believable. I particularly liked that Thomas Byrnes was a medic and is now a surgeon. He fights but he also takes care of people.

Try "Cold Barrel Zero" as a relief from over the top military thrillers that we are deluged with these days.

I received a review copy of "Cold Barrel Zero" by Matthew Quirk (Mulholland) through NetGalley.com. ( )

I received a free advance e-copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This book starts out with a bang and never quits. This is a national security disaster, a special operations military thriller. The author kept me in suspense for the entire book. I didn’t figure out who the good guys were until I was nearing the end. This is a well-written book and the author does an excellent job of developing each of the complex characters and wrapping up the loose ends. The author has done his research and it shows. Even though this book is fiction it really made me think about what is going on in the world today and the recent bombings in Brussels. I look forward to reading more from Matthew Quirk. ( )

COLD BARREL ZERO by Matthew Quirk has an explosive start with intense action, and it doesn't let up throughout the book.

Thomas Byrne is a former Navy medic who is caught in the middle of a national security disaster, and he has has to decide who to trust--and the wrong choice could mean his life and the life of his girlfriend.

The characters in COLD BARREL ZERO are more complex than many in the genre, though it isn't easy to relate to any of them. They're all superhuman fighting machines, and the attempts to humanize them are something of a distraction. Fortunately, the book is all about the action, and those action scenes are plentiful and really well-written.

The book is written in shifting perspectives, which seemed weird and unnecessary. Byrne's story was told in the first person, and everything else was third person, and that was awkward. Fortunately, the author's excellent execution of the combat scenes saved the story.

*SPOILER ALERT!* I really disliked the ending. Once Byrne is done with his story, and we find out that there are two bad guys and that one still lives, it's okay to stop. I was reading the book on an e-reader and didn't know how many "pages" were left, so I figured that the end of Byrne's story meant a second book, and I was content and even a little happy with that. Unfortunately, the author decided to plow ahead and wrap everything up in a neat bow. It's the rare instance where that seemed completly unnecessary.

All in all, this was a decent military thriller. The action scenes are great. The character development is not--but it's not enough of a negative to cause me to NOT recommend it.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of the book in exchange for my honest review. ( )