Book Reviews

Book Blurb

Eric Chistiansen—not his real name—has been looking for sanctuary for a long time. He finally thinks he's found a crime syndicate that might watch his back while he tries to disentangle himself from his highly lucrative, highly illegal job as a killer for hire, albeit a picky one. He's ready to hang up his guns for some peace.

Brady Carnegie came to this little slice of desert between Meth and Hell because he wanted to help bring crime down. He's deeply disappointed to find that his new boss and others in the department are crooked. But Brady has stumbled onto the key to ending the corruption plaguing the stretch of desert he's coming to love, if he can stay alive long enough to use it.

Brady finds unexpected allies in the same unlikely group that's sheltering Eric and starts to realize that the good guys may not wear badges, and the bad guys who do have enough to lose to put his new friends at risk too. Brady's always been a solid law and order man, but he finds himself shifting allegiances like the desert sands shift beneath his feet.

As Eric grows more protective of the earnest deputy, it becomes clear that a true warrior never gets to hang up his guns, and redemption doesn't come without a price. Can a hidden nest of vigilantes bring justice to their barren land while the cop and the hitman find comfort in each other's arms? Or is the cost of redemption only measured in blood?

 

Book Review

Finally! The coldest fish gets his own book and I’m beyond thrilled. I feel as if I’ve been waiting for the loneliest, and sometimes saddest, assassin to get his own love story and happy ever after. I’m even more excited because this appears to be book one in the ‘Desert Fish’ series, a spin-off that centers completely in Victoriana with some of my favorite people. In case you missed it, you can find Eric’s introduction to the Fishiverse in ‘Only Fish (Fish Out of Water 7.5)’ and I strongly recommend that is read before this book.

 

“To kill, as you and I have, there is a thing that is broken. Mine was broken by Mother Russia and a petty oligarch. Yours was broken by your father.” ~ Jai

 

Eric has been a paid-for-hire assassin ever since killing his father when he was seventeen. Granted, his father was in the process of sexually assaulting Eric’s female best friend. His status as an assassin for hire kind of came out of that with referrals and he’s been doing this for twenty years. I wouldn’t say that Eric is a “good” guy, but I also wouldn’t say that he’s “bad”. He researches every kill and ensures that the individual is truly just as heinous as Eric has been led to believe. So basically, pedophiles, rapists, abusers, etc. Personally, I view what he’s been doing as a favor to humanity. But, now he’s physically and emotionally tired. His very soul is tired and he really just wants a place to belong.

 

“He’d vowed to be new, to start again, to look for haven and make it stick. Haven didn’t come with words, he realized, his eyes burning. It came with change, and change was hard.” ~ Eric

 

Brady is a Midwest transfer to the Southern California sheriff’s department and he’s been there for a while. He’d done his research and found that that area of Southern California had had a significant reduction in crime in the past few years and Brady wanted to be somewhere where they were doing good. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take him long to realize that his sheriff and coworkers are not the ones who made this happen. So then, who did? When a local tent revival preacher and his brother (a sheriff’s deputy) are killed on the same day and evidence is found linking them to pedophilia, everything Brady thought he knew about his world explodes. Not necessarily in a negative way.

 

“All he knew—all he really knew—this cold winter night in the desert, was that the man next to him, providing warmth, comfort, and safety, was not the worst thing the world had to offer.” ~ Brady

 

Brady stumbles upon the garage and for those of us who’ve read extensively within this author’s Fishiverse, including free shorts, etc., then you know the people he finds. The desert fish to be exact. Ace, Sonny, Jai, George, Ernie, Burton, Jason, Cotton, and sometimes Amal. These are the people who’ve kept this stretch of empty highway between Vegas and LA/San Diego relatively safe. These are the good guys he’s been looking for and these are the ones he brings his problem to. I’m not going to delve any more into the plot and what happens other than to say the final showdown, so to speak, reminded me a bit of the first Fast & Furious movie.

 

As always, the writing is crisp and clean, the character development is incredible, the plot is (unfortunately) remarkably true to life, and the scenes play out like a movie I’d be watching. One of the best parts about this book, for me anyway, was that it wasn’t always in just Eric and Brady’s POVs. Nope, I got to hear from almost everyone in the gang and it was beyond fabulous to get the peeks into their minds and what they were thinking. There were a lot of emotional moments and I was right there for every single one of them with tissue in hand. There’s humor too, and snark, of course. And, love. And, happy ever after. Because Amy Lane may give me angst, but she also gives me the best of the human condition in all its glory.

 

 

 

DISCLAIMER: Books reviewed on this site were usually provided at no cost by the publisher or author. This book has been purchased by the reviewer.

 

Additional Information

Format	ebook and print
Length	Novel, 374 pages
Heat Level
Publication Date	13-January-2026
Price	$6.99 ebook, $18.99 paperback
Buy Link	https://bwlnk.com/9781641088695