Editorial Content for The Mailman
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Reviewer (text)
Andrew Welsh-Huggins may have created the most unsuspecting super-agent of all time. Mercury "Merc" Carter, aka the Mailman, possesses all of the fighting prowess of Jack Reacher combined with the ability to use various technology to destroy any adversary who gets in his way.
In THE MAILMAN, Merc's original mission is not to save a married couple who are being subjected to a home invasion and torture session. He has a far simpler assignment, which is to deliver a package to attorney Rachel Stanfield. But Rachel has been kidnapped, while her husband, Glenn, is left behind to tag along with Merc.
"THE MAILMAN provides zero opportunity to catch your breath from start to finish, and Mercury Carter is one of the most confounding yet satisfying characters I have read in any thriller."
There is no time to breathe or place to hide during THE MAILMAN as this attack happens on the first page and continues to accelerate into wildly unpredictable places. The criminals, led by Finn, initially seem to want a deposition that Rachel had been a part of. This expands into needing information from her about a woman named Stella Wolford and an item mysteriously called 22/7. The truth behind all of this is left unknown for most of the book, but the revelations are well worth the wait.
There is another character whose safety is threatened: Rachel and Glenn’s daughter, Abby, who is away at college. Merc and Glenn try to get to her before Finn and his goons find her, even though Finn still has Rachel along for the ride with him. Abby initially has no clue what is going on and wants to know why her father and a courier has shown up at her school. She gets up to speed quickly and becomes a valuable ally to Merc in his mission to find Rachel and make his delivery to her.
Our freelance mailman stays one step ahead of Finn and those he works for by taking them down one at a time. There are some great chase scenes and plenty of action-packed violence to keep the narrative humming along. I had no doubt that Merc would succeed in his mission, but I still had no clue what was in the package that he was so determined to deliver.
The villains are into a lot of shady dealings that include lottery scams, but once all is revealed about 22/7, the true danger behind their plot is realized. And it’s a doozy! THE MAILMAN provides zero opportunity to catch your breath from start to finish, and Mercury Carter is one of the most confounding yet satisfying characters I have read in any thriller. As this is the start of a series, I look forward to his return.
Teaser
Mercury Carter is a deliveryman who takes his job very seriously. When a parcel is under his care, he will stop at nothing to deliver it directly to its intended recipient. Not even, as in the current case, when he finds a crew of violent men at the indicated address who threaten his life and take the woman who lives there hostage. That’s because Carter has special skills from his former life as a federal agent with the postal inspection service. After Carter dispatches the goons sent to kill him, he enters a home besieged by criminals --- but the leader of the gang escapes with attorney Rachel Stanfield before the mailman can complete his assignment. With Rachel’s husband, Glenn, in tow, Carter takes off in pursuit of the kidnapper and his quarry. Along the way, he slowly picks off members of the crew and uncovers a far-reaching conspiracy and a powerful crime syndicate.
Promo
Mercury Carter is a deliveryman who takes his job very seriously. When a parcel is under his care, he will stop at nothing to deliver it directly to its intended recipient. Not even, as in the current case, when he finds a crew of violent men at the indicated address who threaten his life and take the woman who lives there hostage. That’s because Carter has special skills from his former life as a federal agent with the postal inspection service. After Carter dispatches the goons sent to kill him, he enters a home besieged by criminals --- but the leader of the gang escapes with attorney Rachel Stanfield before the mailman can complete his assignment. With Rachel’s husband, Glenn, in tow, Carter takes off in pursuit of the kidnapper and his quarry. Along the way, he slowly picks off members of the crew and uncovers a far-reaching conspiracy and a powerful crime syndicate.
About the Book
In a new thriller from the author of THE END OF THE ROAD, a former postal inspection agent tracks a violent crew through the Midwest to rescue a kidnapped woman.
Mercury Carter is a deliveryman who takes his job very seriously. When a parcel is under his care, he will stop at nothing to deliver it directly to its intended recipient. Not even, as in the current case, when he finds a crew of violent men at the indicated address that threaten his life and take the woman who lives there hostage. That’s because Carter has special skills from his former life as a federal agent with the postal inspection service, skills that make him particularly useful for delivering items in circumstances as dangerous as these.
After Carter dispatches the goons sent to kill him, he enters a home besieged by criminals --- but the leader of the gang escapes with attorney Rachel Stanfield before the mailman can complete his assignment. With Rachel’s husband, Glenn, in tow, Carter takes off in pursuit of the kidnapper and his quarry, hunting them across Indiana, up to Chicago and into small-town Illinois. Along the way, he slowly picks off members of the crew and uncovers a far-reaching conspiracy and a powerful crime syndicate, all in service of his main objective: to hand the package over to Rachel. Carter has never missed a delivery and isn’t about to start now.
Introducing a new lone-wolf protagonist to rival Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, Steve Hamilton’s Nick Mason and Gregg Hurwitz’s Evan Smoak, THE MAILMAN is a pulse-pounding series opener with captivating action and enough thrills to leave readers anxiously awaiting the next installment.
Audiobook available, read by Peter Berkrot
