Customer Reviews

The Gatekeeper

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
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This is a thriller in the greatest sense of the word.

Gagnon goes back and forth between two main stories. Jake Riley who's on his first case with his newly created private security firm and Kelly who's in Arizona trying to solve the murder of an Arizona Senator.

I was a little sad that there weren't more scenes that had Jake and Kelly in the same place, as in the previous two books some of my favorite scene were between those two characters, but still, the book was strongly written and tightly and awesomely plotted.

Of course, the scariest part of the book wasn't what happened on the page, but with everything going on in the world, how close we are to the sort of things that happened in this fictional book happening in our real world.

As long as you're not looking for a fuzzy soft cozy with a older lady solving a caper, this book isn't for you, but otherwise, action, twists, intrigue and just a really great read, go, stop reading this review and definitely read this book.

The Gatekeeper was a very, very pleasant surprise.

I have gone off the thriller genre over the last few years, but occasionally, I am lucky enough to pick up a book that makes me remember why I use to read them so avidly.

The Gatekeeper features a likeable heroine in the character of Kelly Jones - she is both bright and interesting and what I love is that at no time is she portrayed as a helpless female. She is a strong female lead. I also liked Madison Grant who, in the beginning of the book is kind of a stupid young adult, but as the storyline progresses, she, herself grows progressively as a character and becomes a force of her own.

This story is about abduction, ransom and terrorists all mixed together and it works. From the first few pages, I was instantly hooked. I honestly could not put all the pieces together until the very end - which is something I love when I pick up a thriller.

I also found myself NOT wanting to put the book down -"just one more page"....also a great sign of a great book in my opinion.

This one is worth reading.

I love this book! Its always at true test for me if I can get into the book early on and with this one I absolutely did. The character development keeps me wondering and its a fast paced, well written book. Cant wait to read her others!

The Gatekeeper opens with Madison Grant, a 16-year-old girl who's met a man on the Internet, who she's flying out to meet. Before she knows it, she's been kidnapped and is being held prisoner. So her dad, Randall, calls up an old friend, Syd, who's just opened a new company called The Longhorn Group, which deals with kidnap and ransom. Syd's partner, Jake, gets started on trying to locate Madison and extricate her before the kidnappers kill her.

Meanwhile, Jake's fiance, Kelly, who works for the FBI, has been assigned a case that involves the brutal murder of a senator. HER case takes her to all these hate groups, and eventually Jake and Kelly find that their cases might be connected.

This book was exactly what I wanted. It had the perfect amount of setup (read: not the whole book) with more scenes that left my heart racing than I could have hoped for. I loved that at least three times I double checked the page count because she was wrapping up things I didn't expect to be wrapped up until the end of the book.

I'm oftentimes put off by love stories within mysteries. If I wanted a love story, I'd read another kind of book. But Kelly and Jake's relationship is so real, and just when I was like, Oh, I see where she's going with this, Gagnon surprised me. Gagnon really has a knack for characters, and I'd like to see future books feature Syd, and delve more into Syd's motivations and intentions.

My only squabble with this book was that the person who calls himself "the gatekeeper" was never actually called "the gatekeeper". It's possible I missed the reference, though.

I know this is silly, but I loved her Author's Note at the end. Having a great author's note is like finding one more M&M in a bag of M&Ms that you thought was empty. It's like, "Oh! I'm not quite done yet!" Yes, I want to know who helped you. I want to know who answered your questions, who your awesome agent is; I want to know all of that. It's not like I know those people, it's just...satisfying.

But best of all? I loved where she went in the ending.

The kidnapping of sixteen year old Madison Grant draws Special Agent Kelly Jones's fiance Jack Riley into a case tied to an unthinkable terrorist plot with an unthinkable ransom, a ransom that demands a father choose between his daughter and his country. Meanwhile, the FBI assigns Kelly to the case of the murder and dismemberment of a senator. As Kelly tracks down the clues to this crime, she investigates the fanatical fringes of American society who might resort to murder rather than the political process to achieve their goals. More terrifying than any one fanatical group itself, she unveils the mysterious figure of The Gatekeeper, an anonymous but powerful force uniting the hate groups towards one common goal in one of the worst domestic terrorist attacks on American soil. At first, the two cases seem disconnected but could they be related? Will Jack and Kelly uncover the culprit and the plot before it is too late or will the case lead them into perils from which they might never recover?

Michelle Gagnon's new thriller THE GATEKEEPER chills the reader with an all too plausible scenario of the enemy within now united, of a blind patriotism turned so fanatical that it will stop at nothing to achieve its goals, a goal even more horrifying than the means itself. Seemingly isolated events become more ominous as the links between them are uncovered, but even more terrifying is the twisted mind manipulating these fringe groups. The kidnapping plot itself magnifies the horror of the plan as Michelle Gagnon turns her vision from the broader look at hate politics to the dilemma and emotions faced by Madison's father. By detailing these human moments, Michelle Gagnon unmasks the twistedness of political obsession, an obsession that seeks to destroy what it claims to value.

Michelle Gagnon's THE GATEKEEPER is a page-turning thriller that speeds up to an action-packed shocking ending. She takes Kelly into the most dangerous case she has faced to date. Readers of the Kelly Jones series will discover even more development of Kelly Jones as a character. Her relationship to both Jack and the FBI receives more attention here, building up the depth of her character for hopefully more development in future novels. Michelle Gagnon's thriller achieves its goal in part due to recent headlines. Set against the backdrop of the escalation of the divisive political volume in this country over recent years, THE GATEKEEPER is frighteningly realistic although her novel does not make use of any real life political personalities. The more independent or introspective type of reader might find THE GATEKEEPER even more chilling as one reflects on one's own political positions while uncovering the terrifying nature of the Gatekeeper, a force more deadly than any individual group or political persuasion, a force that turns one against oneself.

What distinguishes THE GATEKEEPER, however, is the developing portrait of Special Agent Kelly Jones. Tough, determined and talented, she is also a woman ambivalent about her job with the FBI. Even her relationship with Jack Riley is not so clear cut or simple. All these elements add to the depth of her character, making a reader want to see more of her. In addition, this book in particular benefits from the complexities of her character, juxtaposing her humanity to the fanatical absolute values of those she tracks. THE GATEKEEPER coalesces into a cliffhanger that will leave readers anxious for news of Michelle Gagnon's next release.

COURTESY OF BOOK ILLUMINATONS

Madison Grant is a modern young woman; she thinks she's more mature than she really is, and she feels ignored and abandoned by her recently divorced parents. Her Mom drinks too much, her sister's too young, and her Dad has gotten distant, and has now become a workaholic. She can't take it anymore, and now she has an Internet beau, he's older, more experienced, he says he loves her, and she's knows that there is only one thing she feels that she should do. That thing is to pack her things, and get the hell out of Dodge and go to her Internet lover and live happily ever after.

However, this isn't a happily-ever-after fairy tale but a Michelle Gagnon novel and you know this isn't going to end well for anybody, and it doesn't. Madison soon finds herself the victim of a scam, she's kidnapped and held hostage to get her Dad, Randall Grant to do something that he doesn't want to do, or to be involved in. See, after getting into debt, Randall was approached by a shadowy figure and offered money for common secrets. It escalated, soon they wanted things he didn't want to give out, like where all low-level radiation waste was being taken. Now, forced by Madison's kidnapping and subsequent abuse he finally gives up this information, and now they want him to do something even more heinous.

Finally quitting his cushy job as head of security for the super rich Dmitri Christou business interests, Jack Riley teams up with an old acquaintance, the beautiful blond, and black bag operative, Sydney "Syd" Clement to start the Longhorn Group, which will specialize in "K&R", or domestic kidnap and ransom crimes. Riley and Clement come into all of this because Clement is dating Randall, and because she thinks that it would be a good case to get the Longhorn Group's feet wet, and help make their reputation. Riley has his doubts, but goes along with Clement.

At they same time, somebody has killed and quartered prominent Arizona senator Duke Morris; a racist and a supporter for all alien deportation. His butchered body was left in pieces scattered around a prominent landmark. His high position and public body dumping brings Kelly Jones and her new partner, the arrogant Danny Rodriguez who will need to have a serious attitude adjustment. Unfortunately, Jones and Rodriguez don't get along, and in the course of the investigation Rodriguez almost gets himself killed. They also find that there are shadowy leads to Jackson Burke, who, along with his fanatical, and ambitious henchman Dante Parrish, is trying to take over America by organizing American hate groups like The Minutemen, The Aryan Nation, and bikers into his own personal army. Somewhere during the first third of "The Gatekeepers" you begin to realize that this is not just another F.B.I. investigation novel, but a fast-paced high octane thriller along the lines of one of your Mac Bolan's, only Jones and company ain't no superheroes, they make mistakes, and they're not omniscient.

As both investigations proceed, the pace never lets up, nor the tension as Gagnon has proved before that she is willing to kill off major characters. About the two thirds mark Jones and Riley realize that their individual investigations are just two parts of the same problem. The two parts of this multi-perspective novel gradually braid themselves together as Jones, Riley, Rodriguez, Clement, her second in command Michael Maltz, and others all race around Arizona trying to stop a trio of dirty bombs.

I'm not giving much away, as most of the information above is given to the reader within the first hundred pages of this four hundred page novel, what's special is what Gagnon does with it. Despite being longer than her previous two novels, the story here is tighter, the characters more developed, the pace faster, and the suspense more focused. She has also eliminated all of the filler that marked her previous novels, nothing is here that doesn't tie directly to the story. There are none of the gimmicks that also marked the first two novels, no hiding the villain's identity by not directly telling us who they are, and there are no red herrings. No. She lays it all out within the first hundred pages, you know who is who, and the suspense is in seeing if the cast can stop the bombs, and there is no guarantee that they WILL stop them all.

Gagnon either introduces us to some new characters, like the ruthlessly ambitious Syd Clement; her efficient second Michael Maltz who is a good counterpoint to Burkes' Dante Pairish; George Fong, one of Riley's few friends from the agency. She also re-introduces and old character, Danny Rodriguez is actually the lone F.B.I. agent that took the risk to help Riley save Jones in Gagnon's first novel. Then there is Kelly Jones herself. Each novel is quantum leap in Jones life, and we can only wonder where she will go from here in here next novel.

Because this novel isn't as slow as sludge, and written in pretentious prose, it will probably be written off as a fluffy thriller, it's not, it takes a hard look at American racism, and the storyline is lifted from currant events. This is a novel that demands to be filmed, and by rights it should be, but it won't, and that's too bad, but if you like thrillers, you should read this, although I suppose how much you like it may depend on your personal politics. "The Gatekeeper" won't win a Pulitzer, but that's alright, I don't read Pulitzer winning novels. So much for me.

I have reviewed the other books in this series by Michelle Gagnon:

Kelly Jones #1: The Tunnels (Kelly Jones Novels)
Kelly Jones #2: Boneyard
Kelly Jones #4: Kidnap & Ransom

and there is a short story involving Kelly Jones in the kindle anthology Fresh Kills, Tales from the Kill Zone.

I really rate this a 4.5. This was the 3rd in the Kelly Jones series and the series keeps getting better and better. This book deals with domestic terrorism and the fact that the US has chosen to combat terrorism overseas and neglect our homegrown ones. The rallying point in these groups is illegal immigration and someone has brought them together to shock the American public into agreeing to new laws that would take away more freedoms then curtail terrorism. She also left the book on a cliffhanger, so I will be looking forward to the next installment.

Agent Kelly Jones and fiance Jake Riley return in this third installment to the series, following The Tunnels and Boneyard.

Riley's private sector business is just taking off when he and his partner are hired to help investigate a missing persons case. Madison Grant has been kidnapped and the ransom is far from the usual. As Riley attempts not only to ensure that Madison is returned home safely, but to solve her kidnapping as well, he finds that things are much more complicated than they'd anticipated.

Meanwhile, Jones is on the case when a senator is murdered in what seems to be a response to his anti-immigration views. Is it a hate crime, or is someone trying to frame the local immigrant population?

I love it. Gagnon always does such a great job of creating something new out of interesting inspirations and The Gatekeeper is no exception. Plus, another cliffhanger of an ending that is sure to leave readers on the edge of their seats until book four arrives on shelves.

FBI Special Agent Kelly Jones is part of an investigative team looking into the brutal murder US Senator Duke Morris. The prevalent theory to the motive for such butchery is that his death is tied to Morris' highly visible role in ending illegal immigrants crossing into the United States; a warning of sorts to back off or else.

Kelly's fiancé former agent Jake Riley agrees to help the boyfriend of a co-worker. Someone abducted Randall Grant's sixteen year old daughter, Madison.. The kidnappers' demands are shocking and unacceptable; Jake needs to rescue the teen soonest or all hell will break out, Soon these obviously separate cases collide in a frightening domestic convergence at a mystical being the Gatekeeper who somehow has united the most despicable violent hate groups in America preparing them for the third American Revolution.

The third Jones FBI thriller (see Boneyard and The Tunnel) is a super action-packed tale that occurs in a pulse pumping short time frame of June 25 through July 4. Ironically for most of the time, the lead pair works on separate nasty investigations until they connect when it seems too late. Set aside time as this one grips you from start to finish with two incredible unexpected twists as Michelle Gagnon makes the Pogo case: "We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us".

Harriet Klausner

Besides being her 3rd awesome book Michelle threw one of the biggest cliffhangers ever, left me rereading and rereading to see if I missed something somewhere's in the chapter, no author that I have read have ever done one the way she did. Can't wait for the next one REALLY!!!! Way to go Michelle!!"