Title: The Night Charter
Author: Sam Hawken
Pages: 336
Publisher: Mulholland Books
Publication Date: 8 December 2015
Rating: ★★★★★
Camaro answers to no one–until a bad deal saddles her with a young charge.
Exactly one year ago, Camaro Espinoza killed five bad men in New York City and fled town. Now she’s keeping a low profile in Miami, running night charter catch-and-release fishing trips off the coast. It’s a simple life for a former combat medic. But it wasn’t easy to come by. Camaro plans to do everything she can to hold onto it.
Trouble comes knocking in the form of Parker Story, a man in over his head with all the wrong people. Parker wants to book Camaro’s boat to run a small errand off the coast of Cuba. Camaro knows she shouldn’t get involved. But Parker’s got a teenaged daughter named Lauren, and Parker’s associates have threatened to harm her if the mission doesn’t go off without a hitch. Camaro has never met the girl. Barely seen her picture. But that doesn’t mean she can ignore her plight.
Camaro’s used to being wanted–by men good and bad, by soldiers wounded on the field of battle, by the long arm of the law. But she’s never been needed before. Not the way Lauren needs her. Joining forces with Parker, Camaro soon finds herself in the midst of double crosses, international intrigue, broken promises and scattered bullets. Even a skilled warrior like herself may not be able to escape unscathed.
I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw that this book was made into a movie. It just has all the hallmarks of a big Hollywood action film and I loved every single second of it. This book contains everything I look for in a book and I didn’t want it to end. It has action, it has strong characters and it has an intriguing plot. If all of Sam Hawken’s work is this good, then there’s a good chance that he could become one of my all-time favourite authors.
The Night Charter is Sam Hawken’s first full-length novel featuring Camaro Espinoza, an army veteran and charter boat owner in Miami. Camaro is roped into running a night charter to Cuba in order to help ex-con Parker Story create a better life for himself and his daughter, Lauren. When things go south after returning to land, Camaro is left to clean up the mess left by Parker, his friends and the people hunting them down.
Camaro is my type of character. She has a definite Jack Reacher vibe about her and I love that. She’s a former army medic, she keeps to herself and she involves herself in situations that she shouldn’t because she has a strong sense of right and wrong. She’s a kick-ass character that I really want to see more from in the future. The only gripe I had with the character as I was reading was that some elements of her past were alluded to but not explained, however I didn’t realise that these were actually explained in a series of novellas released before The Night Charter.
The plot of The Night Charter is both simple and interesting. It’s not really full of twists and turns, but it still holds your attention all the way to the end. I really like Hawken’s writing style in this book, it’s simple, efficient and doesn’t waste any time on unimportant details. I felt the short chapters were great because it kept the book moving at a quick pace and I didn’t want to put it down and miss what happened next. It really was a thrilling read all the way from the first page to the last.
The only thing that I disliked about the book was that it ended and now I have to wait for the next novel in the series, Walk Away, to come out later this year. At least there are the four novellas featuring Camaro that can tide me over until then and give me a better insight into the past of one of the more interesting characters I have read about in recent times.
Worth a read? The Night Charter is definitely worth a read for anyone who enjoys thriller novels. It has that Jack Reacher feel where a strong, silent character with a strong moral compass gets dragged into a potentially deadly situation that should appeal to most people. It’s action-packed and thrilling and you’re not going to want to put it down at all.
Worth A Read? 