Jack and the New York Death Mask

Getting to Know Jack #1

by Michael Carrier

Nothing else can hurt this calloused retired Chicago homicide detective (or so he thinks), not after he lost his beautiful young Beth to bullets meant for him nearly 30 years ago. But when Jack’s cell phone vibrates at 5:30 a.m. on Christmas morning, little could he have predicted the challenges that lurked. Kate, Jack’s daughter (herself a NY homicide detective), enlists his help on a murder case she is working . The intrigue compounds when he learns her case is intricately entwined with a plot to assassinate a sitting President, and that a former First Lady is one of the conspirators. But the situation only gets worse with Jack’s involvement, as it lead to a group of foreign agents kidnapping Kate in order to coerce Jack’s bidding. He must then balance his focus between rescuing his daughter, and preventing the assassination. If that were not complicated enough, the conspirators attempt to contract Jack for the hit. The story unfolds on the streets of New York City, with visits to Upstate New York, DC, and Chicago.

507 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Michael has at different times in his life driven truck throughout the US, hustled pool from Texas to Montana, traveled the country hitchhiking, spent five years in Greenwich Village's East Side, delivered diamonds in New York's diamond district (disguised as a down-and-outer), tended bar at a New York nightclub, climbed dozens of water towers throughout the US, panned gold, skydived, and worked for over two decades in private security.

One of Mike's favorite hobbies is creating intricate puzzles. Since 1992 he has assumed the persona of "Mountain Mike." As this character, he hides a treasure (which is a ten dollar bill) somewhere around Grand Rapids, Michigan. He then every week publishes puzzles which contain clues as to the location of the treasure.
When a lucky sleuth finds the treasure, Mountain Mike buys it from him for $1000. So far, since 1992, Mike has rewarded seven such treasure hunters.
Currently Michael lives with his wife in a house on Lake Superior. His mailing address is Paradise, MI.

Reviews

[Linda Look · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plots against the President, hit men, secret meetings. Very convoluted and fairly fast read. I rate this a 4.7.

[Lesa McAuliff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was amazing. I loved the plot and loved the characters.

[Valerie Downs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very promising storyline. **SPOILER Alert**

Very promising storyline. **SPOILER Alert**

I would have given this four stars except the lack of consistency in some of the characters. Allison is depicted as a stop for nothing ruthless narcissist. In the end she is content to let everything go and leave her walk away from everything, it just isn't what one would expect from the way her character had been developed. She is willing to kill one of her associates herself when she is afraid he might cross her, but when things go wrong she has to run to hubby for help? That's truly a contradiction. And the main character Jack Handler. Here is a trained and highly professional assassin, and when he knows people are after him and out to kill him he gives his room number out to a total stranger in an elevator? And easily gets into vehicles because they say they are with his associates? Are you kidding me? No trained assassin would survive to the age he was supposed to be, with that kind of carelessness.

[Amy Gables · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a political thriller. I loved the beginning of this novel. It opens with the main character, Jack, a detective, clandestinely dumping a block of ice into the Chicago river. It's some type of job he's doing on the down low and isn't immediately explained so it keeps you wondering. Information is withheld throughout the novel and it keeps you intrigued to find out exactly what is really going on.

There were cool things like explanations of mechanisms that Jack had invented and explanations of cracking codes that added a unique element.

There were occasional grammatical errors. The dialogue occasionally veered into cheesy or stiff territory.

I don't want to give away any spoilers, but there were a lot of twists and turns. Overall it was a very fast-paced, ambitious first novel, with a lot of characters and a whole lot going on, and I enjoyed it.

[Emily]

Jack and the New York Death Mask by Michael Carrier is a political thriller is about a proposed assassination attempt of a sitting president by a former first lady. One thing that sets the novel apart from other books in the genre is that the author writes cryptograms (he has published hundreds) and makes them a part of the book. This novel includes the most difficult one that he has ever written called the "Inscrutable Puzzle."

If you enjoy cryptograms and political thrillers I highly recommend this read.

[Robbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fairly fast-paced story, but it was a bit long. There seemed to be a number of unnecessary repetitions throughout the book. Not sure I really warmed up to the main character; hopefully the next book will determine that for me. I rated this one 3.8 stars.

[Kandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contained some very interesting characters who I hope to see in the future books. The book started out very interesting and not until the end of the book did you find out what that was all about. Looking forward to the next two books in this series.

[Kathy Spencer]

yuck