Customer Reviews

The Second Horseman

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This story starts out interestingly enough as Brandon Vale, a career thief is being broken out of prison...by one of the guards...as he stumbles through the woods he expects to be shot and or captured, but it seems that someone has gone to a lot of trouble to arrange his escape.

As it turns out that person (Richard Scanlon)is the same one that put him in prison in the first place...and framed him to do it. Getting a little complicated? Think how Brandon must feel when he finds out.

It seems that there are some nuclear weapons on the black market, being sold by some Ukranian thugs. The price is 200 million. Scanlon with ties to the US intelligence community has been tasked to make the buy and get the nukes out of circulation. His first problem is that he needs 200 million dollars.

That's where Brandon comes in. After being convinced that his only alternative to saying "no" is to go back to prison, he agrees to engineer a heist of a truck transferring the proceeds from Las Vegas's casinos to a federal depository. However, his problems don't end there.

After pulling off the hijacking he is tapped to go to the Ukraine to make the purchase of the weapons as the person who was supposed to have done that has been killed.

I am not giving away anything to indicate that the person really running the show is the President's NSA Director. However, his plan for the nukes is not what everyone else thinks it is and I will leave the reader to find ouut what he is up to and how it all comes down.

While the thought that a person in that position would act in this manner is somewhat implausible, this is a very entertaining and tightly written thriller which should help those who purchase to pass these cool nights as we head into fall.

Kyle Mills proved his mettle as a first-rate thriller writer with such titles as Rising Phoenix, Storming Heaven, Free Fall, etc. He comes to the fore once again in this fast paced tale of a thief who must steal not only to save himself but others as well. Another person who comes to the fore again is voice performer David LeDoux with a compelling narration that holds listeners spellbound.

Brandon Vale is a good thief, meaning he is capable, deft and an expert at stealing. So, it's a bit ironic when he's sent to prison for a theft he didn't commit. However, he doesn't serve out his term as Richard Scanlon, the former FBI agent who framed Vale, rigs an escape.

According to Scanlon, a Ukranian crime syndicate is auctioning nuclear warheads, and the only way to get them is to come up with $200 million. It's imperative that this be done lest the warheads fall into enemy hands.

Obviously, $200 million isn't pocket change but it seems that it can be had by robbing a Las Vegas casino. Vale has little choice - either cooperate with Scanlon or return to jail and face further punishment for his false escape. Scanlon offers Vale plenty of help for the theft - of course, the help doesn't have any experience at robbery, The only bright spot is the beautiful and wise Catherine Juarez.

A robbery might be relatively simple but it turns out that there's more involved than theft. While Vale isn't at all familiar with international machinations, he's going to have to learn and fast.

Recommended.

- Gail Cooke

Like many authors today and like he did himself with his previous work, Fade, Mills uses the topics of terrorism, al Qaeda, and Middle East turmoil as the backdrop for the storyline of his latest work. Unlike Fade, however, which dealt directly with the subject, Mills' latest work actually only covers these topics in a more secondary fashion. With The Second Horseman, Mills presents the story of Brandon Vale, a career criminal who somewhat unexpectedly finds himself broken out of prison. Presented with an offer he cannot refuse, Vale must orchestrate the theft of $200 million from a Las Vegas casino in order to purchase 12 nuclear weapons (and keep them out of the hands of terroists). Vale proves to be an interesting, even likeable, character. A solid supporting cast of characters makes this a compelling read. All in all, The Second Horseman is not quite as good as Mills' previous work, Fade, which in my opinion was fantastic, but it is very close. This will be well worth your time.

While this is not Hemingway, I found this book to be quite engaging, readable and enjoyable. The plot is well developed with enough, but not too many, twists and turns to make it consistently interesting. A nice read on a Sunday afternoon. Highly recommended.

I thought that the concept of this book was very original. Master thief is broken out of prison to steal truck load of cash to buy nuclear warheads. Now having said that I was very disappointed by the execution of the story, the characters were very one dimensional and the story seemed to skip over blocks of time without proper explanation. I thought the ending of the book was rushed and was very "made for TV". Great idea too bad it did not translate into a great book.

THE SECOND HORSEMAN by Kyle Mills begins with no small irony. Master thief Brandon Vale, arguably the best there is, has been convicted of and imprisoned for a crime --- a jewel heist, no less --- that he did not commit. What is even stranger is that, as he is doing his time in a stand-up manner, he suddenly finds himself escaping (unwillingly) from prison, coaxed along by an unfriendly guard on the inside and shooed away by a fusillade of bullets on the outside.

Vale's world turns upside down when he discovers that the man behind his involuntary prison break is Richard Scanlon, a former FBI agent who framed him for the heist that resulted in his imprisonment. Scanlon has a reason for this change of heart, however. A Ukrainian crime organization has put 12 nuclear warheads on the market. Scanlon is aware of the sale but cannot get the U.S. government to pay serious attention to it. Two hundred million dollars will be needed to take the warheads off the market; in order to obtain this amount of money, Vale plans to rob the bank deposits of the major Las Vegas casinos.

Vale is a loveable rogue with a bit of a smart-aleck style, so the result is somewhat of an Indiana Jones meets Ocean's Eleven caper. There is a villain behind the curtain who wants Scanlon's plan to simultaneously succeed and fail for his own chilling reasons, but his identity and motives are revealed far too early in the narrative to create much suspense, at least as to the "who" and "why" issues.

Still, THE SECOND HORSEMAN is great fun in spots, as Vale and his minder, a fetching lady named Catherine Juarez, attempt to prevent a nuclear conflagration masterminded by a brilliant but twisted genius who believes that the utter destruction of millions of people will bring peace to a region that has never known it.

Vale is an interesting, even charismatic, character who steadies the novel when the plot occasionally stumbles. While there are portions that require some suspension of disbelief, Mills is an entertaining and at time compelling storyteller who can keep the pages happily and quickly turning. Though not his best book --- FADE arguably retains that laurel --- THE SECOND HORSEMAN is certainly worth the investment if the reader is willing to make it.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

Kyle Mills' background as the son of an FBI agent has given him real life insight, which he used quite competently, in the creation of his action thriller, "The Second Horseman"

Mills' plot revolves around the exploits of an ingenious but currently incarcerated career thief Brandon Vale. Vale had been framed to take the fall for a diamond heist well beneath his superlative criminal capabilities. Quite unexpectedly Vale gets sprung from prison with one proviso, that he mastermind a plot orchestrated by his former boss ex-FBI Las Vegas station chief Richard Scanlon.

Scanlon in secretive cooperation with Arab American national security advisor Edward Hamdi had learned of the proposed sale of 12 nuclear warheads by a rogue Ukrainian crime cartel. They proposed to have Vale scheme to steal a truckload of Las Vegas casino cash receipts earmarked for deposit in the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank. The purloined funds would then be used to purchase the warheads, effectively taking them out of play.

As they say, the best laid plans often go astray, which leads to an unexpected route the plot takes as it proceeds towards a rousing conclusion.

A fascinating and timely thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. From Kyle Mills first novel to his latest, I've liked his writing style as well as his strong characters. A thriller writer who deserves a spot on my top ten list.

Highly recommended.

"The Second Horseman" is a by-the-numbers thriller in which a charming thief is shanghaied by a mysterious government agency to help them recover a dozen nuclear weapons, first by stealing the money needed to buy the weapons, then to travel to the backwaters of Georgia (the country Georgia, not the state Georgia, although the notion of a "Deliverance" remake with nukes thrown into the mix sounds like a promising idea).

This is Kyle Mills' eighth thriller, and he does a good job keeping the characters moving. The first half of the book details Brandon Vale's journey from temporarily incarcerated thief to shanghaied recruit for a secret agency to head of a gang charged with stealing millions from a Las Vegas casino. The training for and pulling off of the caper makes up the better half of the book.

It's the second half where things fall apart. While there's plenty of action and tension -- I'm trying not to stray into spoiler territority, so bear with me here -- there's little for Vale to do. He's a thief, not a secret agent, and he seems to spend most of his time standing by helplessly while the world races towards a possible Armageddon. It's a bad sign when the supporting cast is more interesting than the star.

Despite its promising start and entertaining flashes at times, "The Second Horseman" ultimately disappoints. At best, it's a diverting read.

When a professional thief is mysteriously allowed to walk away from one of the most secure federal prison in the United States, a reader should pull that second safety belt over your other shoulder and make sure they are both secure--because you are in for a wild ride. Kyle Mills's latest novel, The Second Horseman is just that, a wild ride--a thriller.

Brandon Vale is in fact allowed to walk away from maximum security, and is quietly directed away from his pursuers and sequestered with a very special operative from a contract security firm whose main business is dealing with threats to U.S. security from those that want to do us harm.

Catherine Juarez is actually a neophyte special operative, but Vale is unaware of this. She is charged with getting him to Las Vegas where her boss Richard Scanlon, also Brandon's former employer, has a very special job for him, one that only someone with his very special talents can complete.

What devolves from this special operation is a sequence of events that will leads the world to the brink of total World War. Twelve nuclear warheads are for sale. The highest bidder will receive all twelve. What they do with these weapons should be of momentous concern to the West. Unfortunately none of the countries that may be most gravely affected by the detonation of these weapons has even the vaguest notion they are about to be sold.

Kyle Mills spins a fantastic and utterly believable story in The Second Horseman. His characters have a wit and real cynicism about their predicaments that is quite believable. His action sequences are planned down to minute detail, hurling you forward through the pages. What I found the most intriguing was the premise. It is frightening--given the current activities in the Middle East--and will make your flesh tingle.

Armchair Interviews says: A good summer read, definitely a book that may make you think twice about that trip to the Holy Land with your local tour group.