What do you think?
Rate this book
The Bartender: Cosmopolitan Chaos
Good bartenders die hard!Brodie is a bartender with a special set of skills. She's a martial arts expert with a strong sense of right and wrong, and she's willing to break the law to see justice done when innocent lives are at stake! Her latest gig serving drinks to Hollywood's elite at the top of a Los Angeles skyscraper seems easy enough...until the bad guys try to ruin her day!
A gang of heavily armed criminals seize the bar during an awards show afterparty. They want access to millions in crypto currency. Hollywood's A-list have it. The villains have the guns to get it. The only obstacle is one stubborn bartender.
Brodie will need all her skills and a healthy dose of luck if she is going to save all the spoiled megastars from becoming bylines in the obits of tomorrow's tabloids! Her only allies are a former football superstar, a spoiled actress from that one zombie show you liked to watch, and her latest girlfriend, a spunky security chief as tough as the Bartender herself! Her enemies are steroid-abusing bodybuilders and vicious outlaw bikers! The odds are stacked against her, but she's willing to risk it all to prevent a mass slaughter, one spin-kick at a time!
It's an all-out action homage to the direct-to-video action movies of the 1990s! Author R. J. Calder refuses to pump the brakes in this relentless thriller. So c'mon, order a nice cocktail, and enjoy this pulp adventure. It'll blow you away.
A gang of heavily armed criminals seize the bar during an awards show afterparty. They want access to millions in crypto currency. Hollywood's A-list have it. The villains have the guns to get it. The only obstacle is one stubborn bartender.
Brodie will need all her skills and a healthy dose of luck if she is going to save all the spoiled megastars from becoming bylines in the obits of tomorrow's tabloids! Her only allies are a former football superstar, a spoiled actress from that one zombie show you liked to watch, and her latest girlfriend, a spunky security chief as tough as the Bartender herself! Her enemies are steroid-abusing bodybuilders and vicious outlaw bikers! The odds are stacked against her, but she's willing to risk it all to prevent a mass slaughter, one spin-kick at a time!
It's an all-out action homage to the direct-to-video action movies of the 1990s! Author R. J. Calder refuses to pump the brakes in this relentless thriller. So c'mon, order a nice cocktail, and enjoy this pulp adventure. It'll blow you away.
194 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 21, 2025
1 person is currently reading
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 12, 2025
Calder does the dreamwork of putting a VHS on paper again. Brodie's back, this time in LA, and she's tending bar at a B-movie/TV gala with stars who exercise their bodies and starve their minds. The story has great action (spin kicks mashing people against Hondas and other inanimate objects a la my favorite heroine Cynthia Rothrock), distinct characters, and a sense of fun about it. You get brushes with romance (as much as Brodie will allow), collisions of intrigue and how-could-you-do-it betrayal, and a great set piece for the final fight. Delivers.
July 31, 2025
The Bartender is back, baby!
Cosmopolitan Chaos from R.J. Calder is the biggest and best installment in the Bartender series yet. If you’re a fan of Die Hard, and wouldn’t mind a little sexy time, additional dark humor, and loads of explosive action, this is the book for you.
Calder’s tales are lean-and-mean action powerhouses, as propulsive as they come. Never a dull moment, yet as special as the build-ups are, his finales are incredible. I can’t help but smile when I reach the final chapter, knowing I’m in for one helluva ride, and man, did he deliver here.
Can’t wait to see where Brodie ends up next. Wherever she lands, you can be guaranteed I’ll be first in line to read about whatever shenanigans she finds herself in.
Cosmopolitan Chaos from R.J. Calder is the biggest and best installment in the Bartender series yet. If you’re a fan of Die Hard, and wouldn’t mind a little sexy time, additional dark humor, and loads of explosive action, this is the book for you.
Calder’s tales are lean-and-mean action powerhouses, as propulsive as they come. Never a dull moment, yet as special as the build-ups are, his finales are incredible. I can’t help but smile when I reach the final chapter, knowing I’m in for one helluva ride, and man, did he deliver here.
Can’t wait to see where Brodie ends up next. Wherever she lands, you can be guaranteed I’ll be first in line to read about whatever shenanigans she finds herself in.
June 28, 2025
For people growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, like me, one of the greatest pleasures in life was watching action movies on video cassette recorders. And not just any action movie. These were days of Schwarzenegger leapt from a plane about to take off, Chuck Norris led the resistance against an invasion of the USA, Stallone cured the disease called crime and…
…Cynthia Rothrock kicked six different kinds of ass.
One of the handful of women playing leading role in the male-dominated action-movie genre, Rothrock, an incredibly gifted martial artist, karate chopped, punched, leapt, somersaulted, double-somersaulted, and roundhouse kicked her way through classics such as Yes, Madam, Tiger Claws, and Martial Law.
Rothrock acts sporadically now but she remains a beloved icon in the minds of her millions of fans.
One such fan is R J Calder who has created Brodie clearly as a homage to Rothrock. Brodie is a bartender. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of alcoholic drinks, is an awesome mixologist, and also just happens to be a superb martial artist who protects the innocent, rights wrongs, and always, always gets a girl.
In Cosmopolitan Chaos, which is also the first full-length novel in the series, Calder out-Rothrocks his previous Bartender stories in terms of scope, ambition, action, and sheer amount of fun.
As the book begins, Brodie is tending bar at an upscale joint in Hollywood, catering to celebrities. She is sleeping with the security chief of the joint. Things are uncharacteristically placid in the turbulent life of our Bartender.
So of course things have to go south in an express elevator. A criminal with a plan to rob cryptocurrency investors invades the joint and takes everyone hostage. Including Brodie.
Explosions, gunfights, hand-to-hand combat, betrayals, and quips ensue.
Cosmopolitan Chaos is one of the best books I’ve read this year. It’s smart, fresh, doesn’t ignore its roots but doesn’t slavishly genuflect before at the altar of said roots either. The action comes fast, the violence is brutal, and the pace unrelenting. The dialogue isn’t real but feels real in the context of the world Calder has created. And the characters – oh, the characters!
Everyone is a delight. The sociopath villain, his loyal but dumb sidekick, the racist biker dude, the “Ellis-from-Die Hard” bar owner, the security chief, the entitled starlet – every single one of them is distinctive and memorable. Quite a feat to pull off in a short span of 15 chapters.
And speaking of chapters, each of them has a title. How cool is that?
I have a minor quibble with the climactic fight scene but Calder has a very good reason to write it in that way.
I heartily recommend everyone who likes fast-paced stories with great action scenes and a lovable lead character to check out The Bartender: Cosmopolitan Chaos. Buy the hell out of the book so that Calder comes up with a sequel soon.
Thank you, Joe Nelson and Point of Impact Publishing, for providing me an ARC.
…Cynthia Rothrock kicked six different kinds of ass.
One of the handful of women playing leading role in the male-dominated action-movie genre, Rothrock, an incredibly gifted martial artist, karate chopped, punched, leapt, somersaulted, double-somersaulted, and roundhouse kicked her way through classics such as Yes, Madam, Tiger Claws, and Martial Law.
Rothrock acts sporadically now but she remains a beloved icon in the minds of her millions of fans.
One such fan is R J Calder who has created Brodie clearly as a homage to Rothrock. Brodie is a bartender. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of alcoholic drinks, is an awesome mixologist, and also just happens to be a superb martial artist who protects the innocent, rights wrongs, and always, always gets a girl.
In Cosmopolitan Chaos, which is also the first full-length novel in the series, Calder out-Rothrocks his previous Bartender stories in terms of scope, ambition, action, and sheer amount of fun.
As the book begins, Brodie is tending bar at an upscale joint in Hollywood, catering to celebrities. She is sleeping with the security chief of the joint. Things are uncharacteristically placid in the turbulent life of our Bartender.
So of course things have to go south in an express elevator. A criminal with a plan to rob cryptocurrency investors invades the joint and takes everyone hostage. Including Brodie.
Explosions, gunfights, hand-to-hand combat, betrayals, and quips ensue.
Cosmopolitan Chaos is one of the best books I’ve read this year. It’s smart, fresh, doesn’t ignore its roots but doesn’t slavishly genuflect before at the altar of said roots either. The action comes fast, the violence is brutal, and the pace unrelenting. The dialogue isn’t real but feels real in the context of the world Calder has created. And the characters – oh, the characters!
Everyone is a delight. The sociopath villain, his loyal but dumb sidekick, the racist biker dude, the “Ellis-from-Die Hard” bar owner, the security chief, the entitled starlet – every single one of them is distinctive and memorable. Quite a feat to pull off in a short span of 15 chapters.
And speaking of chapters, each of them has a title. How cool is that?
I have a minor quibble with the climactic fight scene but Calder has a very good reason to write it in that way.
I heartily recommend everyone who likes fast-paced stories with great action scenes and a lovable lead character to check out The Bartender: Cosmopolitan Chaos. Buy the hell out of the book so that Calder comes up with a sequel soon.
Thank you, Joe Nelson and Point of Impact Publishing, for providing me an ARC.
June 10, 2025
A fast, fun read. The story concerns Brodie, a bartender who wanders America, finding trouble wherever she goes. Since Brodie happens to be the world's greatest hand-to-hand fighter, trouble is probably the one you ought to be worried about.
In this adventure, Brodie is employed at a night club located in a skyscraper in Los Angeles. As fate would have it, a heist crew has set its sights on the same night club. There's going to be an awards show afterparty and the celebrities in attendance make for too much juicy, low-hanging fruit for the criminals to resist. Before the night is over, bones will crunch and blood will spill.
If a plot describing a hero trapped in a tall building with a bunch of heavily armed desperados sounds familiar, that is entirely by design. The book works on its own merits, but it can also serve as a love letter to DIE HARD that is clearly straight from the heart.
This is the third outing in the series, but newcomers have no reason to fear. No prior experience is necessary to enjoy. The author's mission statement seems to be: "We're all here to fun, aren't we? I know I am."
One last note: while this story is not a comedy, I did laugh out loud a few times. The author has a good sense of humor, but he knows enough not to overdo it. This is an action story, first and foremost, and on that score, he more than delivers. I give R.J. Calder's COSMOPOLITAN CHAOS my highest recommendation.
In this adventure, Brodie is employed at a night club located in a skyscraper in Los Angeles. As fate would have it, a heist crew has set its sights on the same night club. There's going to be an awards show afterparty and the celebrities in attendance make for too much juicy, low-hanging fruit for the criminals to resist. Before the night is over, bones will crunch and blood will spill.
If a plot describing a hero trapped in a tall building with a bunch of heavily armed desperados sounds familiar, that is entirely by design. The book works on its own merits, but it can also serve as a love letter to DIE HARD that is clearly straight from the heart.
This is the third outing in the series, but newcomers have no reason to fear. No prior experience is necessary to enjoy. The author's mission statement seems to be: "We're all here to fun, aren't we? I know I am."
One last note: while this story is not a comedy, I did laugh out loud a few times. The author has a good sense of humor, but he knows enough not to overdo it. This is an action story, first and foremost, and on that score, he more than delivers. I give R.J. Calder's COSMOPOLITAN CHAOS my highest recommendation.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews