As I am reading a lot of crime fiction of late I am finding out what I like and what I don’t like. I’ve pretty much established that I’m not a fan of the psychological thriller — at least I haven’t found a recent release I’ve loved. Now I can add to the list the superhero thriller, guys — mainly guys — who can do anything without making a mistake and get out of any jam. The guy is usually an ex-Ranger or some other elite armed forces unit. He is an incredible shot whether at short-range with a pistol or long range with a sniper rifle. He is also an expert at hand-to-hand combat and usually has some good hacking chops when the need arises.

All of this kind of makes my review of Steve Hamilton’s Exit Strategy (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) kind of weird because I liked the story, but not so much the genre. Exit Strategy is filled with non-stop action and Hamilton can write at a furious pace. This book is the proverbial page turner.

The door to the bathroom opened. Quintero looked away for an instant, just long enough for Mason to grab the barrel of the gun and pull. The gun went off, the sound dampened by the suppressor, and the slug going right through the soft wood of the closet door. As Quintero pulled back, Mason went with him, heard Lauren’s scream as he rolled all the way over the bed, onto the floor. Quintero shoved his fingers into Mason’s bullet wound, making him cry out in pain. But he didn’t let go of the gun.

The two men remained locked together, the gun held at an impasse between them. Mason knew he didn’t have the strength to hold on. Not today. Quintero’s face was above him, the face that represented everything in his life that he had no control over, and now as he felt his hands slipping from the gun he wondered if this face would be the last thing he’d ever see.

But then another face came into view. Lauren, standing above and behind them. She had on a white robe and was holding something, a silver pole, which she wielded like a sword. Lauren raised the pole above her head, then brought it down hard on Quintero’s back. The man’s eyes went wide, and the breath left his body, as Lauren swung the pole again, this time hitting him square in the back of the head.

If one peel’s past the superhero mythos, Hamilton’s allows his lead character Nick Mason to show a glimmer of a humanity. Stuck in a job he hates, Mason moves through his life day-by-day executing the tasks assigned to him otherwise those he loves will be killed. Though this might be typical fare, Mason’s flicker of humanness helped me enjoy a genre book I might not necessarily would have. If the superhero thriller is your thing, you will find Steve Hamilton’s Exit Strategy a blistering and fun read.

G.P. Putnam's Sons and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Exit Strategy. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Darius Cole, through his trusted associate Quintero, is pulling Nick Mason's strings so hard, he is in danger of breaking. In order to keep his loved ones safe from harm, to what lengths will Mason go? When certain realizations have Nick scrambling for an exit strategy, will he be able to turn the tables on the puppet master?

Character development is at a minimum in this book, but the fast paced, thrilling plot made up for this lacking element. Although there are a few moments for which reality is absent, the overall novel was a well executed crime thriller. Nick Mason is an interesting character and I was hoping that the author would divulge more of his background. As there are clearly more books to come, I look forward to reading more by Steve Hamilton.

Another good book from Hamilton as always. Gave it four stars just because i know what he can do! the character development is just not up to par as it is in the Alex books. But overall a good enjoyable read.
Thanks

That old saying, best laid plans, and so on and so forth. One tough dude, slightly beyond believable but just go with it, and then you have an excellent non-stop action story. All the elements of a great action thriller abound, and if you are living in Chicago some of the street names and places are familiar. But it is not all in Chicago so our tough guy is on the move and planning on the fly. But success is not guaranteed as in some books where the main guy (or gal) never fails. That’s how it is, some days peanuts, and some days shells. And then there is the ending, not one of those everyone lived happily ever after jobs, which of course leaves the reader waiting for the next chapter and still looking for the exit.

If you liked the first Nick Mason, than this will be a fun read. I loved Steve Hamilton's "Lock Artist", and these do not quite live up to that one for me.

There's definitely a market for this but it wasn't for me and I DNF. A "good guy" killer- not. Plot drive and a page turner but too much violence.

A few years ago I read a Forbes article focused on finding out the strongest brand in publishing. Central to the article was the understanding that only about half of adults read books and just a fifth of those are regular buyers. Facing such tough statistics, it is extremely important that authors develop a brand or platform. According to the article, Lee Child represents the strongest brand in publishing with his Jack Reacher series. And why not? The premise of the books is terrific: tough, lone-wolf, former-soldier moves about the country righting wrongs as he faces them. Women love Reacher because he's big and strong. Men love him because he absolutely wallows in the inherent male desire to be heroes (and often the object of female affection). Every Jack Reacher book isn't a sure-fire knockout, in fact there have been a few in the series I didn't enjoy, but every Reacher book is an event. Lee Child really hit on something with the through-line of his books--a tough guy hero who can go anywhere to solve any problem.

Which brings me to Steve Hamilton's Nick Mason series. I dare say Hamilton has struck the same kind of gold that has made Lee Child a brand to reckon with. Hamilton's premise is simple but effective: Nick Mason is convicted of a crime and makes a deal with the devil (imprisoned crime boss Darius Cole) that involves Mason being granted his freedom in exchange for answering the phone whenever Cole has "work" that needs to be done. More often than not this work involves a measure of violence, but Mason takes the offer because it allows him an opportunity to see his young daughter, Adriana, and his ex, Gina, beyond the confines of a prison. This initial premise allows Hamilton to take Mason anywhere, just as Child does with Jack Reacher. But as would be expected, a deal with the devil comes with a great deal of trouble after the fact. Paying the piper is uncomfortable for us all, and Nick Mason quickly tires of the arrangement. But how do you get out? It's possible you can't. Read this terrific addition to the series to find out, because I won't go into the specific details for this second Nick Mason thriller, EXIT STRATEGY, other than to sing its praises (as I did the first) and compliment Hamilton on striking literary gold. The Nick Mason series is a must-read for crime fiction readers.

This review has been posted on MBTB's blog:

The nature of a serial is that a story is told in episodes. In a crime series, there is usually an overarching storyline, usually a personal one. I’ve been captivated by several authors whose arc describes the death of a loved one. It explains protagonists’ personalities and obsessions. The nature of a crime series is that usually a crime is solved within the book and the back story arc — whose story has already been told or will be told in its own book — is floating in the background. Steve Hamilton goes his own way, eschewing this convention. Be prepared at the end of “Exit Strategy” to be shouting, “No, no, no, no,” ad inifinitum.

Fantasy and sci-fi authors excel at creating continuing sagas. Think of Robert Jordan’s massive volumes in his Wheel of Time series. (RIP, Robert Jordan.) Think of George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones missives. Think of all the trilogies that have been created and are being created. N. K. Jemisin has a fabulous opus that hasn’t concluded yet. How about “The Lord of the Rings”? In these cases, there are small wrap-ups and big surprises, but also an unresolved protagonist’s journey that, we hope, will end in a satisfying conclusion … someday. So it is with Steve Hamilton’s Nick Mason series.

“The Second Life of Nick Mason,” the first in this series, was good reading but unfulfilling. That’s because Hamilton has a big story he is stretching over, Lord knows, how many books. Nick was a criminal. Somebody died. Nick got caught. He was sentenced to prison for a long, long time. Darius Cole, a big-time Chicago criminal, befriended him. In exchange for Nick’s freedom and the ability to see his former wife and young daughter, Nick would agree to be part of Darius’ crew and do his bidding. Also, it was clear, Darius could order a hit on Nick’s family at any time he chose.

At the cost of his soul — not to be overly dramatic or anything — Nick becomes Darius’ hitman. In “Exit Strategy,” Darius has a chance at a retrial. Yes, Darius is in prison. While he was able to get Nick freed, he himself is under more dire interdiction. There were two witnesses who put Darius away the first time. Now they will have to be pulled out of their new lives in WITSEC and brought to re-testify against Darius. It is Nick’s job to find the brief moments in time when the witnesses are vulnerable and kill them.

Nick’s ex-wife and daughter don’t realize he holds their lives in his sniper’s sight. In the few months he has been free, Nick also established a romantic relationship with Lauren. Now she is another weak point that Darius can manipulate. On Darius’ behalf, Marcus Quintero is Nick’s handler. He enables Nick’s missions, but he makes it clear he will kill Nick and those he loves if necessary. Diana is Darius’ girlfriend. She and Nick share a townhouse in an expensive part of Chicago. Her restaurant provides the legitimate cover for Nick. Diana is as much a prisoner of Darius’ threats as Nick is. They don’t live their lives; they exist in a half-world, as puppets of a cruel and devious puppetmaster.

On the good guys’ side are U.S. Marshal Bruce Harper, Chicago Detective Frank Sandoval, and U.S. Assistant Attorney Rachel Greenwood. Harper has never lost a WITSEC person, until Nick kills Ken McLaren, Darius’ accountant who testified against him in the first case. Sandoval, a straight cop, has been gunning for Nick since he got out (read “The Second Life of Nick Mason”). Greenwood would have to retry Darius’ case, hopefully with at least one of the two witnesses kept safe in witness protection. Her prospects don’t look good.

Hamilton does caper stories very well. Nick’s hunt for and elimination of the witnesses are fine, albeit perverted, caper stories. Sean Burke, a psychopath, also provides fine caper moments. He was Darius’ hitman before Nick. He went rogue and was caught by the police. Guess who escapes custody. Now Nick has to hunt him down as well. Nick is not going that alone. Harper and Sandoval also are part of that chase. It’s not clear that catching Sean would be good for one’s health, however.

Both Darius and Nick have exit strategies. Their stories are intertwined. So if Nick succeeds in disentangling himself, then Darius fails. And if Darius succeeds, then the door to Nick’s independence slams shut. What is assured is that people will die. Many, many people, as it turns out.

There are a lot of characters involved in this book. Not all of them make it to the end of the book intact. (Sorry, this doesn’t rate a spoiler alert; you’ve got to have guessed this at the outset.) Nick does. (Once again, not a surprise.) And this is where the no, no, no, no, etc. comes in. In the tradition of old time serials, we must see the unfortunate writing on the wall, “To be continued…”

Think of it as a fantasy trilogy.

4.5 stars

I absolutely loved this book. Exit Strategy is an incredibly fast-moving, action-packed thriller that I could not put down. Nick Mason is a unique, complicated protagonist whose character adds an interesting dimension to this thriller series. The plot is creative – Mason is hired to infiltrate WITSIC (the Federal Witness Protection Program) – and once the story begins, it never slows down. Hamilton’s characters are well-written and authentic. It has been a while since I read an action thriller that I enjoyed this much. Thanks to G.P. Putnam’s Sons and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this outstanding book in exchange for an honest review.

Steve Hamilton provides a very enjoyable read with characters portrayed in a way you can identify with. Even though the main character Nick Mason is a good guy with many bad boy overtones you can't help but want this good/bad guy to win. Nick made a deal to get out jail because he was desperate. Only now does he truly appreciate just what a desperate situation he is in and realizes he will cross any line, break every self ideal just to keep his family safe even if it means his own death. Fun, exciting, breathless roller coaster ride of a read you never want to end. I fervently hope there are more Nick Mason books.

“Exit Strategy” by Steve Hamilton is the second book in the Nick Mason series. While this can be read as a “stand-alone,” I recommend that readers start by reading the first book, “The Second Life of Nick Mason.” They share the same characters, and there are multiple references to events in the first book throughout this book. For first-time readers, this book is three stars because it is somewhat difficult to categorize all the people, places, and events without having read the first book. For returning readers, it is five stars.
Nick Mason has been given “twenty years of his life back in exchange for his service to Darius Cole. On call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. To do whatever was asked of him.” Despite his desire to do as little harm as possible, for example by using “nonlethal but incapacitative trauma silicone plugs” rather than traditional bullets, he cannot escape his job – a hired killer. “Mason had always lived with violence. But now Mason was the violence.”
This book has significant explicit violence, and no one escapes it. The action moves with a lightning-fast pace, and the blood flows just as quickly. It is gritty, dynamic, and suspenseful. The story-line has twists and turns that will keep you constantly guessing. No one is like-able, and no one comes out unscathed. The surprise ending opens yet another door into which we readers will eagerly plunge headfirst.
NetGalley gave me a copy of “Exit Strategy” in exchange for an honest review. I had previously read “The Second Life of Nick Mason,” and loved this sequel.

I've been a long time fan of Steve Hamilton's Alex McKnight series, so I was intrigued when the first Nick Mason book, The Second Life of Nick Mason was published. Nick Mason went to Supermax for a crime he had committed but he came to the attention and then the protection of Chicago crime boss Darius Cole. Cole arranged for Mason's sentence to be vacated. The price large, Cole now owned Mason body and soul. He also owned the soul of Nick's ex-wife and nine year old daughter.
So here we are to the second book. Which does not really do a great job of explaining the backstory. A bit more information would have made this a better read for those who are picking it up as a standalone.
Nick is now a hit-man for Darius Cole. Not a fun job to have on one's resume. Especially since he is going after Federally protected witnesses. Which puts him in direct conflict with the US Marshall's office. Not good. Besides having the of brains not wanting an entire federal agency devote the rest of their lives to running yo down, Nick has enough humanity left not to want to kill innocents.
Hamilton does a fabulous job in putting us on Mason's side. Especially since the people against him are decent upright women and men. But yes, we are rooting for Mason to kill some folks. Good writing there.
This is a book that tears along at break-neck speed. Exciting and action packed. It is the second book in a series that takes an unexpected direction.
Thank you NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Steve Hamilton's written another fast-paced high-energy story about Nick's struggles to free himself from the crime boss without hurting his family. His exit strategy is filled with improvisation and deadly weapons. The plot takes several surprising turns that made me flinch and keep reading. There are no cliffhangers-- you know what needs to happen next in the next book-- but several plot lines are dealt with in unexpected action. Mason is heading for a train wreck and I can't look away.

I thought it would be hard to like Nick Mason, but I really felt for him.

3.5 stars. This is the first book by Steve Hamilton that I have read, so I wasn't sure what to expect. What I found was a well written thriller mixed with a police and Federal procedural. Exit Strategy is the second book in the series. You can read this book without having read the first book, The Second Life of Nick Mason. This is a standalone and ends with a soft cliffhanger for future books in the series. I really enjoyed this book and had a hard time putting it down. There is graphic violence.

The book blurb adequately describes the storyline so I'm not going to repeat that all info here. The author did a great job of explaining what is going on and describing the setting of the story in Chicago, with the mob and ethnic neighborhoods. There are a lot of clues in the storyline that keep you guessing what twists and turns will be revealed next. It definitely kept me riveted all the way to the end.

I look forward to reading more of Steve Hamilton's books. I received a copy of this book from NetGalley and chose to leave a review for other readers.

Didn't like this one as well as I liked the first in this series. I didn't care for the relationship between Nick and Lauren, I thought she was a very weak, poorly written character and she was completely written out of the story very quickly in this novel. I enjoy the series overall and will continue to follow it, but I might put the next book on the back burner for a while. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to read and review this title. I will recommend for purchase at my library and I imagine that the popularity of The Second Life of Nick Mason will make patrons eager to read this one.

This second installment in the new Nick Mason series confirms Steve Hamilton's Place among the best crime writers of our day.

This well-constructed thriller will have your adrenaline pumping from the very beginning. This is apparently the second in a series about Nick Mason, and I did not read the first, but had no trouble catching on.

Nick Mason had been incarcerated for felony murder after a fellow conspirator took a life in the course of a robbery. He got released from federal prison in Terre Haute after serving five and a half years thanks to an unwritten contract he made with a very powerful prisoner, Darius Cole. Cole orchestrated Mason’s release so Mason could work for him on the outside. For getting his life back (in a way), Mason agreed to be on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to do whatever was asked of him, “no matter what it was.”

In essence, and in spite of being opposed to murder, Mason became Cole’s “angel of death,” performing executions of those Cole wanted eliminated. But, “…even though Mason killed people, complete strangers, he lived by a code: No innocent victims.”

Another of Cole’s “employees,” Marcus Quintero, provides Mason with his assignments and the weaponry to carry it out. In the first operation we read about as the book opens, Mason has to get through between ten and twelve “high-end guys” to get to the target. This is considered to be not a problem for Mason, even though he was not an assassin prior to his conviction for robbery.

This target, as well as the second assigned to Mason, are set to testify against Cole in his upcoming retrial. Cole has no intention of letting these potential witnesses live to do that, in spite of their being very heavily protected. Somehow, with all Cole’s connections on the outside, he manages to find out where these men are and exactly how they are guarded. He also has a bead on every aspect of Mason’s life in order to keep Mason under his thumb. So, for example, when Mason is sent out on a job, if he doesn’t do what he has been told to do, Quintero’s job is to go take out Mason’s ex-wife and daughter, both of whom are the most important people in Mason’s life. It was to continue to see them and to protect them that Mason made the deal with Cole and continues to honor it.

Nevertheless, Mason keeps trying to come up with an “exit strategy” to get himself out of this situation. Cole’s tentacles are pretty deep, however, more so than Mason had imagined possible.

Discussion: This book has excellent discussions of the legal issues surrounding Cole’s retrial, and a fun look at the culture of Southside Irish Chicago. Cole’s success at infiltration and compromising people seems a little improbable, as does Mason’s success as an assassin against huge odds, but it makes for exciting reading.

Hamilton is also very good at making a killer (Nick Mason) sympathetic. This aspect helps offset the gritty, dark, and violent aspects of the story.

I hope future installments will be a little more “realistic” however.

If fans of Steve Hamilton’s Alex McKnight series, about a good-guy cop-turned-P.I., were willing to cut his new protagonist, Nick Mason, a little slack—well, sure, he’s a hit man, but he has a moral code!—Exit Strategy will put that willingness to the test. In his second Mason thriller, Hamilton’s Chicago ex-con proves to be a savagely effective killing machine, having to go back on his personal vow to try to keep the casualties to a minimum. Exit Strategy runs up a sky-high body count as Mason goes about his deadly duties.

While the first book in the series, The Second Life of Nick Mason, had to roll out the backstory, Exit Strategy jumps right into the action (newcomers won’t be totally lost, but it helps to have read the previous novel to fully grasp what’s going on). Nick is out of prison thanks to the powerful Darius Cole, who sits behind bars but still manages to run a thriving Chicago criminal enterprise. Cole will be a free man if Mason can bump off the witnesses who are prepared to testify against him. All that’s standing in Nick’s way is a battalion of U.S. marshals sworn to protect the heavily-guarded men, along with a bloodthirsty Irish assassin who is on nobody’s side but his own.

The reason Cole is able to exert so much power over Mason is because he has threatened to harm Nick’s ex-wife and beloved daughter if he ever steps out of line. In Exit Strategy, we learn that the ex’s new husband wants to move the family to Denver. Mason is sad that he will be so far away from his kid, but anyone reading this book will probably be rooting for the entire clan to pull up stakes to a remote part of Iceland, though Cole seems so omnipotent that one gets the sense that he could probably keep tabs on them even if they were living in a Mongolian yurt.

Like the first book, Exit Strategy is a pure adrenaline rush, almost impossible to put down once you’ve started it. But by the end, I found my feelings about Nick to be a lot less mixed than they were when I finished the earlier novel. He may not be a “bad guy” in the sense that he has evil motivations, but he definitely does bad things—terrible things—and genuinely good people suffer the consequences of his actions. Still, it’s clear that Hamilton is working at the height of his powers, and with Exit Strategy, he has written a novel as lean and ruthless as his antihero protagonist.

In this second book of the series, Nick Mason has become a killer but he is not the only assassin in this book. He and his handler Quintero both work for Darius Cole, a crime boss who runs his Chicago criminal operation from prison. That's where Nick met him and the price Nick paid for his early release was 20 years worth of indebtedness to Cole. Nick wants to exit this arrangement. Strangely, he never contemplates suicide, which would have both solved his problem and lessened the number of dead bodies, but also would have shortened the book series.

"Before Gordie could reach for his Ruger, Burke swung the toolbox, shattering both the radius and the ulna bones in the big man's forarm, then quickly closed in on him in the confined space, broke two of his fingers and took the gun away. He hit him in the face with it until his nose cartilage was pulverized and several of his teeth were lying on the bathroom floor." That's what you get in this book. If it isn't what you want, move on to another book. This should be a movie, and probably will be, but it just wasn't my kind of book. I found the first book entertaining, but the unbelievability factor was ramped up too high for me this time and it was just nonstop action and brutality with an extremely high body count.

This book was more cartoonlike and less plausible than the first book. After Nick has been bleeding on his girlfriend's floor for a while, and he then tries to send her away because someone is going to kill her, she actually says to Nick "but what about us" (they have been together for maybe 2 weeks) and he, of course in his manly way, replies "there is no us". If this were a movie, at that point the entire audience would be laughing hysterically. However, I am sure there is an audience for both the movie and this series, which I assume will continue after this book. It just wasn't for me.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.