The Destructor

Lawson Vampire #3

by Jon F. Merz

MEET LAWSON.

A cynical, wise-cracking vampire charged with protecting the Balance - the secret existence of a race of LIVING vampires that have evolved alongside humanity for thousands of years.

A FIXER.

Part-spy, and part-commando -- James Bond with fangs. Lawson mixes shrewd cunning with unmatched lethality to get his job done. He tries his best to dismantle conspiracies, dispatch bad guys, and live long enough to get home.

SHIVA.

Named after the Hindu god of destruction, she is half-vampire and half-lycanthrope. Able to change her appearance into anyone she pleases, she is one of the most dangerous assassins on the planet.

BELARUS.

The head of the vampire governing body, the Council, he is Shiva's next target.

THE LUNASPE

An ancient amulet reported to imbue its wielder with invulnerability, it might also be the real goal of Shiva's journey to Boston.

And only Lawson can stop her.

This is the third book in the Lawson Vampire series, originally published back in 2002. This book also contains an excerpt from THE SYNDICATE (A Lawson Vampire Novel #4) and runs approximately 83,000 words. The author's website is http://www.jonfmerz.net

Praise for Jon F. Merz:

"Lawson is more like Jason Bourne than Dracula, making this a vampire mystery with broad appeal." --Booklist

"A powerful novel by a man who knows the turf already." -NYT Bestselling author Robert. B. Parker

"Jon F. Merz's novels move at a break-neck pace, twisting through a landscape of thrills and terror." -- Douglas Clegg, author of The Infinite and The Priest of Blood

"...a fine stalking session in vampire-noir land...a series and talented writer I'll be sticking with all the way." -- Mort Castle, author of The Strangers and On Writing Horror

Praise for Jon F. Merz's THE KENSEI (A Lawson vampire Novel #5):

"If James Bond, True Blood and Kill Bill created a mutant hybrid of a book, it would be The Kensei. A bullet train slice 'em, dice 'em mixture of action, suspense, and vampire ninjas. Did I mention vampire ninjas?"--Jason Pinter, bestselling author of The Fury and The Darkness

"The Kensei is an action novel with real bite. Vampires, Yakuza killers, crooks and animal-monster hyrbids. Jon F. Merz brings his A-game and then ratchets it up to a whole new level of supernatural action. Highly recommended!" --Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of The Dragon Factory and Patient Zero

"In The Kensei, Jon F. Merz seamlessly welds gritty detail with myth and legend to create a thrill ride into the shadow-world lurking beneath modern Japan. Lawson's fight against evil has bone-crunching authenticity. Plus, it has vampires, ninjas, and vampire ninjas. What more could anyone ask?"--Christopher Farnsworth, author or Blood Oath

About The Author:

Jon F. Merz is a writer with over a dozen published novels, a producer for New Ronin Entertainment and a trained black belt ninja. He has taught defensive tactics to civilian crime watch groups, police, military units, and agencies like the US Department of State, the Department of Justice, and the Bureau of Prisons. In his past, Jon served with the United States Air Force, worked for the US government, and handled executive protection for Fortune 500 clients. He lives with his wife and two sons in suburban Boston.

Genres: Vampires, Urban Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Fantasy, Thriller, Ebooks

304 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2003

About the author

As a writer, Jon has published over 40 novels with major publishers like Kensington's Pinnacle Books, St. Martin's Press, and many more. He is also the author of eleven installments in the internationally bestselling adventure series Rogue Angel (2006-present) with Harlequin's Gold Eagle line. His short fiction story "Prisoner 392" (appeared alongside Stephen King in FROM THE BORDERLANDS, 2004, Warner Books) earned him an Honorable Mention in 2004's Year's Best Fantasy & Horror edited by Ellen Datlow. Jon has also co-authored two non-fiction books: LEARNING LATER, LIVING GREATER with Nancy Merz Nordstrom (2006, Sentient Publications) and THE COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO ULTIMATE FIGHTING with Rich "Ace" Franklin (2007, Alpha Books/Penguin/Putnam).

Jon is perhaps most famous for his Lawson Vampire series of supernatural action novels starring the Fixer Lawson, a jaded anti-hero charged with protecting a race of living vampires from exposure. There are currently six novels (The Fixer, The Invoker, The Destructor, The Syndicate, The Kensei, The Enchanter) two novellas (Slave to Love, The Courier) and five short stories (The Price of a Good Drink, Interlude, Red Tide, Rudolf the Red Nosed Rogue, Enemy Mine) in the series with many more adventures yet to come.

Jon's latest novel is the new Shadow Warrior series debuting in September from Baen Books. Book 1, UNDEAD HORDES OF KAN-GUL is due out September 3rd in stores everywhere.

Jon also publishes his backlist independently. You can find his ebooks on Amazon: http://bit.ly/jonfmerz Barnes & Noble's Nook store: http://bit.ly/bnjonfmerz and on Kobo: http://bit.ly/kjonfmerz

As a producer, Jon has formed New Ronin Entertainment with longtime friend Jaime Hassett to create television and feature film projects in the New England area. Their first project is THE FIXER, a new supernatural action series based on Jon's Lawson Vampire novels. Filming of the pilot begins in 2013.

Jon has studied authentic Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu/Ninjutsu for over twenty years under Mark Davis of the Boston Martial Arts Center. He has also trained with senior Bujinkan instructors both in the United States and Japan. During a trip to Japan in February 2003, Jon earned his 5th degree black belt directly from the 34th Grandmaster of Togakure-ryu Ninjutsu, Masaaki Hatsumi. In addition to traditional training, Jon has also taught defensive tactics to a wide range of clients, including civilian crime watch groups, police and EMS first responders, military units, and federal organizations including the US Department of State, the Department of Justice, and the Bureau of Prisons.

In his past, Jon served with the United States Air Force, worked for the US government, and handled executive protection for a variety of Fortune 500 clients.

Reviews

[Barbara "Cookie" Serfaty Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Destruction: A Lawson Vampire Novel #3

Lawson is now after Shiva, a half vampire and lycanthrope. Shiva is after a lumps scepter. Can Lawson stop her before she find it and kill all vampires and lycanthropes. Great story.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Magnus opus for freaks like me who loves shapeshifters who seduce vampires. thats literally all I think about 24.7 and im so glad jon f merz produced content for my community. my gf who is real teases me but if she was as hot as shiva and if I was as rugged as lawson, we would be seeing other people.

My favorite part is obviously when Lawson boned, but spoiler, its not the boning. Its the fact that they found an underground bunker in Mission Hill. Theres no real estate there that would allow for such a boning to occur, its all frat boy apartments and bodegas. That's the type of fantasy I live for, Boston having basements and huts and such.

Shout out to Brookline in this one, and the fact that the Blue Hills in Milton had an appearance. I hope in the future, they hit up Canton (#FreeKarenRead)

I hope to God and pray every night that Jon F Merz will make a side novel series of Shiva and the werewolves, because nothing screams good content than werewolves that turn into other people not wolves.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent book! I LOVE vampire books of any shape or form but the “Lawson” series is extra good. I have always loved espionage books like Bond, Bourne and any others and this author really knows how to tell a story, putting you smack dab in the middle of them.
So far, I have read three of this series and am anxious to start book four.
It you like intrigue with humor thrown in, this is the series for you. Yes, there are some typo errors but not enough to impact the great read!

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This author is awesome...

Ive read 1, 2 , and 3. Just bought number 4 can't stop to good. Have to see what happens next. All the books intertwine

[Stephen]

Loved it.

[IslandRiverScribe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the 3rd full novel in the Lawson series and it is not a standalone entry. Many events from the first two novels are referenced and only minimally explained. And the vampire culture that Merz embraces was explained in the first novel and is only barely referenced in succeeding entries. It is simply assumed that the reader has absorbed the salient facts and is keeping up.

The story arc revolves around a female lycanthrope assassin who is rumored to be in Boston to kill the head of the vampire Council. She is actually a half-breed, half lycanthrope and half vampire, who has the ability to shape shift into any form, animal or human. She is incredibly adept at assuming the physical shape of any one she has ever visually laid eyes on, in person or by photo. And she can even assume that person’s voice if she has heard it personally or in a recording.

Needless to say, Lawson is in trouble here. He is the Fixer for the Boston Council and he has never encountered such a being. It is not too long before neither Lawson nor the reader can trust that any character is who they say they are. Nothing said can be trusted as the truth and nothing seen can be believed.

This makes the story an incredibly tense read. To further increase that tension, Merz uses first person POV to tell the tale so the reader only knows what Lawson knows and thinks. Merz also uses short, declarative sentences to keep the tension high and to illustrate Lawson’s to-the-point personality.

Martial arts forms and skills are highly prominent in this series. These arts are not just defensive and offensive techniques but the mental and emotional grounding force for Lawson. The moves are well explained but sometimes the vocabulary and anatomical names become a bit much.

Even though the story was well and systematically told, several reasons downgraded the star rating. The first is the turn-by-turn directions for every trip, by foot or by vehicle, which Lawson undertakes. I realize that Merz is from Boston and so are many readers, but the average reader truly doesn’t need every street name mentioned.

Secondly, there are a great many typos in the book. But, in the interest of full disclosure, my e-copy was purchased in 2011, with a copyright date of 2003. It is hard to tell if the typos are truly editing errors or if they are a result of the conversion process to epub format, a process that was rather glitchy in the early years of e-publishing. Most of the errors do not distract from the flow of the story. The errors are not homonym replacements caused by indiscriminate use of a spell-checker but are primarily missing punctuation, missing letters or missing words. I simply believe that, by 2011, the author should have issued a revised copy in a series for which he is still writing entries.

And finally, there appears to be the use of a deus ex machina device at the very end, used to save Lawson from fairly certain death. Even though this book is set in a paranormal/supernatural reality, the device is obvious. At least Merz has Lawton state, when asked how he managed to save himself, that he does not know.

Merz has created an honorable, if lethal, character in Lawson. He is well worth reading about, even through the errors, and so I will.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stephen King is a storyteller. To me his characters seem secondary to their action and their circumstances. His characters, for the most part, are somewhat flat. He draws you in and tells you a tale, then sets you free. There's nothing wrong with that.

Stephenie Meyer (Go ahead; roll your eyes; get it over with.) does the opposite. She develops a character then asks you to follow her through a frivolous but enjoyable adventure. There's nothing wrong with that either.

Jon Merz does both but neither is frivolous or flat. He introduces you to a character within this vivid world he's created. Through that character he hands you a thread and uses that thread to pull you along through good and bad, smiles and tears, action, sleep, love and loss. He owns his characters and their surroundings and he shares them with you inch by inch, foot by foot, yard by yard. He so discreetly spins his yarn that you live it rather than read it. You gather the story as your eyes float along word by word and you believe every bit. This is what makes Jon Merz such a terrific writer.

I've been a fan of mysteries and detective novels (Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle) since I was a kid. I can usually see a plot twist coming a mile away. I'm the person you never want sitting next to you when you're watching any whodunit because I'll tell you "whodunit" before the first commercial break. I was so drawn into this story as I read it that more than once I found myself dumbfounded by a twist I never saw coming. And at least once I used a name to describe Mr. Merz that I'm sure he would not have appreciated. You see, I don't like to be proven wrong. To say The Destructor was worth reading would be a terrible understatement, so just buy the ebook and begin reading now.

[Julie Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been enjoying the Lawson vampire series very much, I love the humor, the kick ass hero, the conspiracy plot (with the supernatural object about to bring death and destruction) . It's like watching a really good adventure movie.

This book, however, was not the best one I've read, which is why I gave it only 3 stars rather than the usual 4. That isn't to say it isn't a good read, just that I liked the other ones better. That sometimes happens in a series, sometimes the formula just doesn't work as well. It didn't work as well for me on this one and I'm not sure why.

I didn't like the plot, I think. I found it too unrealistic (yes I know, in this kind of genre, with supernature objects and vampires, 'realistic' might not be the best criteria. But every story, no matter how fantastic, still needs to be credible-- . And I found myself scrunching my nose up at parts, saying to myself: really?!)

It might also be I didn't like the villain. And maybe that's a woman thing?! I wonder how guys would view the baddie in this book...

And also I was wondering about his 'true love'. She makes an appearance but I'm still waiting to see what happens, as per the ending in Book 1... It wasn't enough, I think.

However, I still love the Lawson character--and am now reading Book 4. So it wasn't as if Book 3 put me off continuing on in the series!

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, I have decided -- I do like this Lawson. I also liked this book better than any other in the series thus far (I am reading them in order). I don't know whether the writing improved or whether the character developed better, but I just feel good about reading this book. Lawson is still kinda a dork always talking about his ninja moves, but it was interesting to see him in a genuine moral dilemma (the prior book had a moral choice, but, hello, you always take the side of the little kid), taking the side that was right given the facts made available to him, and adjusting as those facts proved unreliable. So, yeah, definitely, read this book!

[R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another good book in the series. So far I'm not disappointed and I like that Lycanthropes were introduced, also with a unique spin similar to the way that Vampires are unique in the series. Maybe it's that uniqueness that keeps me reading. They definitely aren't the normal nocturnal blood suckers you would see in other books. I know that sooner or later I'll end up getting and reading the next book in the series as well. Might as well keep going as long as they stay affordable ($3.99 for ebook on Barnes and Noble) and good.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the premise behind this book...

[Clay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even more genre sleight of hand. Still having fun with these!

[Stephen Helmlinger]

Nice twist to the usual vampire fare.

[Bobbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast moving. Good read. Like the writing style.