A quiet afternoon in Amsterdam. A seedy, greedy dealer in Japanese artefacts opens his door to a young woman who asks to see some antique weapons. But the dealer has crossed the wrong people, and the customer is Katla, a professional killer. A few minutes later he has been neatly killed with one of his own swords. Katla is the reprobate of the title, and Reprobate starts the way it means to go on, with lots of blood.

Reprobate – the first of several Katla novels, the Amsterdam Assassin series – has three main protagonists. One is the Amsterdam office of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, which wants to know who is supplying heroin to American soldiers in Germany. The second is the culprit, a Dutch biker gang. The third is Katla. The bikers foil the DEA’s plans to entrap them in a welter of gore, courtesy of Katla. But then they double-cross her. This is a mistake. More gore ensues. The gore never quite gets gross, though. That it doesn’t is a tribute to the skill of Amsterdam-based thriller writer Martyn V. Halm, who does blood with a light touch and some fascinating background detail.

Reprobate is, in fact, an engaging read. This is partly due to Halm’s meticulous research into Katla’s killing techniques – and much else besides, including the locations, and Japanese customs that figure in the plot. But he’s also a fine plotsmith, creating interlocking components that never get out of place so that every unexpected twist in the plot seems, once revealed, to have been perfectly logical. This is a harder trick to pull off then it seems, and is the heart of a good thriller. Last but not least, Halm can create atmosphere. Thus, as the book opens, Katla is calmly planning her first murder of the book amid an utterly normal street scene, replete with locals on bikes, tourists, and the normal trappings of a working day.

If the book has a flaw, it’s Katla herself. She caught my interest, but not my sympathy; and many, but not all, readers need someone to root for in a book, otherwise it may leave them cold. In some ways this matters less with Reprobate, as Katla’s victims richly deserve their fate, and it’s quite fun watching them get skewered. Moreover Halm could (and I suspect would) also argue that Katla is a fascinating study in amorality. She does show feeling for a lover in Reprobate, and it may be that her character is developed more in the later books.

No matter. Reprobate is good stuff – an intelligent, well-written thriller, tightly plotted, with well-drawn characters, good detail and the twists and turns that keep you reading. It’s also a good-value download at $3.99. Recommended. ( )

A quiet afternoon in Amsterdam. A seedy, greedy dealer in Japanese artefacts opens his door to a young woman who asks to see some antique weapons. But the dealer has crossed the wrong people, and the customer is Katla, a professional killer. A few minutes later he has been neatly killed with one of his own swords. Katla is the reprobate of the title, and Reprobate starts the way it means to go on, with lots of blood.

Reprobate – the first of several Katla novels, the Amsterdam Assassin series – has three main protagonists. One is the Amsterdam office of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, which wants to know who is supplying heroin to American soldiers in Germany. The second is the culprit, a Dutch biker gang. The third is Katla. The bikers foil the DEA’s plans to entrap them in a welter of gore, courtesy of Katla. But then they double-cross her. This is a mistake. More gore ensues. The gore never quite gets gross, though. That it doesn’t is a tribute to the skill of Amsterdam-based thriller writer Martyn V. Halm, who does blood with a light touch and some fascinating background detail.

Reprobate is, in fact, an engaging read. This is partly due to Halm’s meticulous research into Katla’s killing techniques – and much else besides, including the locations, and Japanese customs that figure in the plot. But he’s also a fine plotsmith, creating interlocking components that never get out of place so that every unexpected twist in the plot seems, once revealed, to have been perfectly logical. This is a harder trick to pull off then it seems, and is the heart of a good thriller. Last but not least, Halm can create atmosphere. Thus, as the book opens, Katla is calmly planning her first murder of the book amid an utterly normal street scene, replete with locals on bikes, tourists, and the normal trappings of a working day.

If the book has a flaw, it’s Katla herself. She caught my interest, but not my sympathy; and many, but not all, readers need someone to root for in a book, otherwise it may leave them cold. In some ways this matters less with Reprobate, as Katla’s victims richly deserve their fate, and it’s quite fun watching them get skewered. Moreover Halm could (and I suspect would) also argue that Katla is a fascinating study in amorality. She does show feeling for a lover in Reprobate, and it may be that her character is developed more in the later books.

No matter. Reprobate is good stuff – an intelligent, well-written thriller, tightly plotted, with well-drawn characters, good detail and the twists and turns that keep you reading. It’s also a good-value download at $3.99. Recommended. ( )

My appetite for Halm’s Assassin series was whetted by reading his novellas.

Halm skillfully merges several story lines together in this entertaining novel. Unlike his short works,, here he has added several interesting characters: Deborah Stern, a DEA agent coming off a shooting who has been transferred to Amsterdam especially because she speaks fluent Dutch; Bram Merelyn is a blind man whom Katla is watching as he happened upon her in the gallery of a man Katla had just killed. They develop a relationship and there is a great scene where he, the blind man, takes her to a movie.

Katla is hired by some drug dealers to kill an undercover DEA agent who has wormed his way into their midst. They happen to have a source within the police agency so they dare not kill him themselves and must have the killing look like it was done by a member from a competing gang.
Books about assassins rarely work well if the character is just a superhuman killing automaton. Even Stark's Parker has a human side in his relationship with his girlfriend and Keller evolves into a father and regular citizen as Block's series evolves. So Halm begun to develop Katla, a professional in a bizarre professional. She nevertheless makes mistakes and has an emotional side. She has her own moral compass. Halm’s world is populated by very grey moral compasses. As he says, “In this world there is always room for smart immoral people.”

I will certainly read the rest of the series, and I’m hoping that the author focuses more on Katla, perhaps developing the relationship with Bram, both interesting characters. A minor gripe is that there were a couple of tidbits I thought to be extraneous. For example the mugging of Deborah Stern, her disabling of the criminal, and then the comments regarding the Dutch legal system ‘s apparent “coddling” of criminals. If the story was intended to be a critique of their system, it was completely defanged by the subsequent prank played on Stern by her colleagues. I’d love to hear a comment from the author regarding my observation on this.

It’s always fun to read novels set in foreign cities. For those interested in more Amsterdam stories, besides Halm’s, I can recommend Baantjer’s Dekok series. Dekok is a sort of Dutch Maigret. ( )

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If you like a kick-ass heroine, multi-talented and a non-judgmental main character, Reprobate is the book for you.

Reprobate has a great start, it'll hook and drag you into the story whether you want it or not.

Katla is an assassin and she is a damn awesome one at that. In fact, she's like the Assassin Creed guy The HitMan guy all in one.

I love how Martyn introduces the character in the story. Not only that, each and every character has a certain quality about them that I can't get enough.
It is represented through different points of views at different times and it all merges in the end with the crossing of paths with one another.
It is also something like the 'Vantage Point'.

This is also my first time in reading a novel of such storyline. Reprobate is unique and each character compliments one another.

I just want to gush at Katla's abilities. She's just so awesome!
The whole storyline has that quality of a TV Series but if you think that's boring...well, it's your loss. :D
I love all the parts where there's action, shooting and killing in it. I love how each and every detail of the kill is being described. It made me feel like I'm actually learning something valuable in the book, not that I WANT to kill someone. It's just knowledge to me.

I believe this book is awesome enough to be in my favourite books list.

Sincerely,
Selina. ( )