Vigilante by Robin Parrish

The squeeze of a trigger followed by a silenced bullet and Nolan Gray, a famous war hero, is dead.
The world is falling apart; National debate is a joke, criminals are running rampant holding a large part of the job force, war lingers over the world and the United States Government is about to collapse.
President Thornton Hastings is trying his best to bring law and order back to America by forcing budget cuts, and creating a new anti-crime team (Organized Crime Intelligence agency-OCI) he hopes can save the country he once fought for.
When strange bill-boards start appearing across the country promising “a better way”, people wonder if “a better way” is truly possible. Hope is sparked on the streets in New York as a mysterious man rises up to take down the unlawful and protect the innocent. Can a single man change the dark streets of New York and trigger a hope for the nation?

The first sentence of Vigilante had me interested in this book, by the time I finished chapter one I knew this book was going to be good.

Vigilante reminded me of Batman and Spiderman mixed together. Creating a grapple swinging, bullet proof, almost superhuman, vigilante. The mission, solve the world’s problems and make people themselves better. With only his military training, an ex-commander, a tech genius kid, and enough drive to go miles Nolan Gray is ready for a challenge.
Robin Parrish created an excellent action story that kept the pace up through out. We are quickly introduced to Nolan and learn of his ambitions, skills and what drives him.
Sadly this is one thing that needed work. Nolan is a great hero, just his back up team was just that; back up and under developed. We did learn some basic character history to better understand personalities but more insight would have helped explain Alison, Arjay and Commander’s loyalty. Same with the villain, though he was a good strong villain, the fact his motives were based off of sickly blind rage kept him flat and predictable.

The plot was intense and built upon itself nicely. Since this is an action book a lot of the time I felt like it would make a good movie. There are a lot of good fight scenes, races, tense moments, time-ticking bombs, fires, and drama for a full-length film.
I am not going to give out potential spoilers but the ending of this book will leave you with mixed feelings. I also feel it was rushed, like Parrish needed to quickly finish the book so he just ended it and gave a five page epilogue to hastily tie up some lose ends.
Robin Parrish wrote a good book with a fast plot, decent twists, and a strong hero that I could see popping up in the movie theater. Sadly the use of Batman and Spiderman classic techniques hurt my respect for the creativity of the book. While the ending had me wondering if that was really the end.

B
Thank you Bethany House for the review copy. 

Scorpia Rising by Anthony Horowitz

~Warning! This is the last book in the series, read the first books before reading this one.~

Alex is free! He has escaped his life as a teen spy; he is now free to be what he wants to be. A Schoolboy. Just MI6 has other things in mind. A perfect mission for Alex has arrived and he is needed. Jack in all her stubbornness demands them to leave him alone, but another sniper shooting shows he needs protection.  Grudgingly Alex accepts this mission, knowing that “In the end, there is not way out.” – pg. 166. He once more goes undercover in an international school to check and make sure the security is sound, with Jack along for the ride. What he, and MI6 don’t know is that they’re nothing but pawns and a deadly game.

This book starts out amazing, Scorpia is back and ready to prove itself. As I started reading this book and reached page 32, 50, then 100 I was wondering, “Where is Alex?” he hadn’t shown up in the book yet. Sure he has been mentioned, but not seen. It was a interesting change in style, one that took me a while to get over. But as I read on I saw how clever Horowitz was to do it this way. By knowing the first part we got to know the main villain, Razim, who is more chilling then all of Alex’s past enemies. He is a true psychopath, when he spoke I would be filled with dread as I saw where the conversation was going.  Razim is the one of the best/worst villains I’ve ever read. His henchman is pure genius, I was dumbfounded at who it was. 
Scorpia Rising shows Alex has grown up. A year has passed since his first mission and he is no longer a kid. I was expecting it, I have been a fan of these books for years. I have grown up with Alex, I knew he would be more like an adult then a kid in this book. He needed to be. Something that really drove this point home for me was that Alex has always wanted a gun, well this time he has it.

The plot was amazing, that is all I have to say. I would read this book and glance at the clock later thinking just minutes had passed when it had been hours of reading. It was intense but not confusing, insightful without giving anything away, it was easy to understand yet had 3 of the best twists I have ever read. Horowitz is just an amazing author.

This book is the last book to the Alex Rider series and it answered all the questions I had. It is sad to see one of my favorite series close but I know that Alex can’t be a kid forever. I applaud Anthony Horowitz for writing a wonderful series, and for closing it so well. Even though it does hurt to know this is “the end”.

A+