Judgment and Wrath
Joe Hunter, one-time scourge of terrorists turned freelance knight errant, accepts what appears to be a simple mission: rescue young Marianne Dean from Bradley Jorgenson, her abusive lover, who is heir to a pharmaceutical fortune. Hunter goes to Miami to do just that and finds that the young couple is the target of a deranged assassin who fancies himself Dantalion, an angel cast out of heaven and a &#x201C;Great Duke of Hell.&#x201D; Hunter thwarts Dantalion&#x2019;s first two attempts, setting up a mano-a-mano confrontation with the wraithlike killer in the swamps near Lake Okeechobee. Although Hilton&#x2019;s gun battles, car chases, and explosions are reliably entertaining, his greatest talent lies in creating over-the-top villains. Dantalion is as bizarre and monomaniacal as Tubal Cain, the serial killer from Dead Men&#x2019;s Dust(2009) whose goal was to eclipse Ted Bundy as America&#x2019;s worst. Plotting and dialogue remain works in progress, but if it&#x2019;s straight-shooting machismo readers are after, Hilton and Joe Hunter fill the bill. --Thomas Gaughan