Hostage Zero (A Jonathan Grave Thriller)

This is the second book I've read by John Gilstrap. I'm impressed. I thoroughly enjoyed both of them. If you like action, his books are worth reading. Just a note to the author..Marines don't have Medics. The Navy does that for them.

Permit me to tell you at the outset that John Gilstrap is a very entertaining guy. If you ever have the opportunity to sit and listen to him, please do so. He tells great stories well, has a terrific sense of humor, and is extremely personable. And his books? They are even more fun than he is. HOSTAGE ZERO is the second of the Jonathan "Digger" Grave novels, a fabulous one-sit read that goes down page-by-page like your next favorite --- and intelligent --- action-adventure movie. Grave runs a firm in the vicinity of Vienna, Virginia, known as Security Solutions, which provides the same to major corporations. He also has a firm within a firm, known to but a few key employees, that runs operations off the radar. He is assisted in these endeavors by Boxers, a giant of a man with a propensity for danger to match, and Venice Alexander, who is a master at intelligence gathering, among other things. Grave uses Security Solutions as a means of funding Resurrection House, a residential school for children whose parents have been incarcerated. The book kicks into high throttle when Jeremy Schuler and Evan Guinn, two students from Resurrection House, are kidnapped in a late-night raid on the facility that leaves a beloved employee barely clinging to life. Understandably, Grave takes the invasion as an act of war and proceeds accordingly. Schuler is left for dead nearby, while Guinn is spirited away to the South American jungles of Colombia. The kidnappings present several puzzles. Why were these two boys taken? Why were they treated differently after their abductions? Do they have anything in common, other than the fact that they were students at the same school? Grave begins to slowly unravel the multiple threads that lead from the kidnapping with the assistance of his team and an unlikely ally in the form of Harvey Rodriguez, a Marine Corps medic who is down on his luck and then some. It is Rodriguez who discovers Schuler after the abduction, and his subsequent encounter with Grave and Boxers results in an uneasy alliance that gradually gives way to trust. As Grave's investigation proceeds, he discovers a plot that originates at one of the highest levels of the newly installed presidential administration and stretches back in time to an incident that changed the course of a senatorial election. And when Grave learns that Guinn has been sent to the cocaine fields of Colombia, he launches what can only be described as a suicide mission to bring him back, throwing himself, Boxers and Rodriguez against a well-armed and tightly controlled criminal army on the enemy's turf in what turns out to be Guinn's last hope of survival. There is enough heart-stopping action here to easily fill three books. Gilstrap somehow makes a three-man assault against a heavily fortified compound seem plausible, and, believe me, in his hands it seems like the most natural thing in the world. Of course, anything is easier to get into than out of. And be warned: not everyone who c

In Virginia, former marine now homeless Harvey Rodriguez finds the kid near death and tries to help Jeremy Schuler survive as he had been left for dead; his roommate Anthony at the school for children of jailed parents remains kidnapped. Not far away, posing as FBI Agent Leon Harris, freelance hostage rescuer Jonathan "Digger" Grave questions nineteen year old jailed prisoner Jimmy Henry while his associates Boxer and call me Ven-ee-chay" watch his progress and his back from different milieus. He tells the teen the associates who hired him they do not want any information re the kidnapping or shooting to get out so he will bust him out, but if betrays him he will kill him. Digger and his team seek to save the lives of Jeremy and Anthony. The rescue expert is confused why these kids and others are being snatched as there is no ransom money available to make it worth kidnapping them. Thus they begin the quest with the only one caught: Jimmy Henry. However, though not one to put anything passed those in power, Grave is shocked when he realizes a connection between the government and the mob is behind the abductions. This is an exciting thriller as the audience learns why the abductions occur, who the victims are, and what choices the older lads have between slave, overseer, or death. Fans will be hooked from the moment Digger goes after Jimmy and then his associates in what is a fast-paced action-packed tale as the hero and his teammates learn the hard way that the enemy kills with No Mercy to the innocent. Harriet Klausner