Say That to my Face (Internet Tough Guys, #1

by Bernard Maestas

Alex is a throwaway teenager in New York, pitfighting for scraps. Ted is a bored suburban high schooler in Illinois making a profit on changing grades and pirating movies.Together they become international mercenaries, battling for their own profit, occasionally stumbling on doing the right thing, and taking sarcastic jabs at each other along the way.

Using their collective talents, they rob a crooked bank president, rescue the kidnapped daughter of an oil tycoon and hunt high value insurgents in Iraq for the bounties on their head. They train government troops in one African country to crush the tribal government of a neighboring country and then train the tribal militia opponents of the adjacent country. In Russia they hunt down a wanted war criminal on the run from the UN, exposing a human trafficking operation.

Realizing that they are at their best together, they go into business for themselves, picking the jobs they want, when they want, and reaping all the profits.

180 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 30, 2013

About the author

Bernard Maestas lives in paradise. A police officer patrolling the mean streets of Hawaii, he has a background in contract security and military and civilian law enforcement. When not saving the world, one speeding ticket at a time, and not distracted by video games or the internet, he is usually hard at work on his next book.

Reviews

[William Freedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bernard Maestas's well-told new series is off to a fast-paced start with Say That to My Face. It might remind you of the TV series Scorpion, except here the characters are more three-dimensional and have more at imminent risk than their reputations of being smart. (Of course, we can all relate to the premise of a villainous Web troll. I speak from personal experience, and know people who have a far worse time with them than me.)

I launched right from ST2MF into the next ITG novel Godwin's Law, which I just finished. It's my understanding that Maestas is working on a third. I'll be one of the first to pre-order!