This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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I’m...enjoying myself.

Some people like collecting beer mats. Some like keeping tabs on birds, bugs, animals… whatever. Some like walking, running, going to the gym. We all get our kicks from somewhere. I’m open enough to enjoy all the above. But I’m never happier, nor more focused, than when I am getting shit done while the chips are down. Now, floating between the shallow rocks off the Atlantic, using my wits, guts and training to elude a mysterious force, I am in my element; my absolute, unrelenting element.

WHAT'S MORTE POINT ABOUT?
Something is about to happen at Morte Point, he can't get into details with Ben, but his police contact and his entire agency have been waved off from it by a higher power. Which just means it's time for something unofficial to happen—enter Ben Bracken, the former soldier, escaped convict, and patriot on his one-man crusade to take on the criminals that England's justice system can't handle.

With only a couple of details given to him, Bracken finds his way to the North Devon coast just in time, retrieves the item he was sent for—and then has to spend the next few days eluding armed men of various skill levels, government officials with differing priorities and ethics, and nature red in tooth and claw—and a few other hazards.

Can he survive long enough to do the right thing with what he retrieved? Is there a right thing to do with it? Is Ben on his own enough, or will he have to find allies to get the job done?

DOES PARKER HAVE SOMETHING AGAINST BEN?
The number of things that go wrong for Ben in the first 40% of this novel is pretty astounding. And by "go wrong," I generally mean "inflict some sort of injury" to him. He's being hunted by a group with numbers, resources, and determination; he cannot make contact with anyone he can trust; and he's injured repeatedly (to varying degrees of seriousness). It's bad enough that if you didn't know there were two more books published (with one imminent), you'd start to wonder if the last half of the book was going to get a different narrator. It's like Parker was angry about something and took it out on Ben.

Things to lighten up for him—which isn't to say that the rest of the book is easy, the problems continue, just less frequently (but they're of a higher degree of seriousness).

A STEP TOO FAR?

I sleep the sleep of a man who knows he has done wrong. I sleep a sleep that is deep, yet forced, unbroken yet tormented, as my subconscious pretends that what I did hasn’t happened at all. And if it did somehow happen, surely it is not time yet to wake and face it.

Not long after the physical hazards lighten up, the moral and psychological ones become more pronounced. Ben has certain ideas about what kind of person he is—so does the audience at this point. Ben takes a couple of actions that are truly disturbing, and may (should) haunt him. It certainly looks as if they will.

A lot of this kind of "wandering one-man army" type characters don't seem to think much about their acts of violence for very long, and it seems like Ben might be an exception to the rule—and I think we need more like him. One of these morally questionable acts is fairly justifiable for a fictional action hero, but the other (the one prior to this tormented sleep)...I don't know He has a hard time letting himself off the hook for it, and I'm pretty much with him on that one. I'm curious to see if later books see him shying away from that kind of thing.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT MORTE POINT?
Parker's writing is crisper; while outlandish, the plot seems more grounded; on the whole, the action scenes are more convincing and exciting (although the destruction of the floating nightclub in A Wanted Man tops anything here); the characters are better fleshed out—and, when applicable, more chilling. Generally speaking, Parker took what he did in the previous novel and improved it—exactly as one would hope to see. Parker barely establishes a status quo before he proves that he's willing to blow it all up—a gutsy move this early in a series.

However...

I can't quite put my finger on it but something about this didn't work as well as A Wanted Man. I think objectively, it's probably a better novel, but subjectively, I'm not as enthused about it. I'm still diving into the next one in a day or two—I want more Ben Braken, I just also want a bit more out of the books. Nevertheless, if you're looking for a thrill ride full of action, adrenaline, and morally complicated choices? Morte Point will deliver. ( )