If you're a fan of multi-layered, intelligent and intricate plotting along with psychologically twisted but incredibly interesting villains, and you haven't read the Patrick Bowers Series by Steven James, you're depriving yourself of the ultimate in thriller constructions. Beginning with The Pawn and following the chess pieces in sequence to their importance with The Rook, The Knight, The Bishop, and now The Queen, this is a must-read series for complex thriller lovers.
FBI Special Agent Patrick Bowers uses his genius brain to geo-spatially determine where killers center their activities. When it's discovered that an old nemesis of Patrick's had a partner in his grisly serial murders, Patrick and the FBI SWAT Team congregate outside the suspected partner's trailer waiting to overtake him. After there seems to be no activity inside the trailer, Patrick and the Team Leader Anton Torres approach to find it empty.
Shortly afterward Patrick's contentious boss Margaret Wellington orders him to Wisconsin to oversee the investigation of a brutal murder of a child and her mother.
The small town in Wisconsin is significant for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is it's the home of his estranged brother Sean and his wife Amber. Both Sean and Amber knew the victims and the missing husband and father. Local law enforcement assumes it's a domestic case, but as Patrick looks at the amplified facts in the case, he discovers this is no domestic murder/suicide.
Combine all of this with a ghost assassin, a terror coordinator code-named Valkyrie, an escaped murderer and a supposedly dead rogue CIA agent, the discovery of the identity of the fiendish partner to the serial killer, eco-terrorists, Patrick's escalating relationship with Special Agent Lin-hua Jiang, the ever-troublesome but inevitably lovable step-daughter Tessa, and you have one intensely conflicted story that travels more dark avenues of the soul than there are roads in this icy snow-blown town.
In The Queen Steven inches into a spiritual undercurrent and tackles the examination of forgiveness and the possibility of God's existence. Throughout this series spiritual references have held a discreet position in the background of the stories having been shoved there with the death of Patrick's wife and Tessa's mother, a relatively new believer when she died. Tessa is the one who has periodically broached the faith discussions with few clues to understanding them. Because Patrick hasn't been a believer throughout the series, his awkward conduct and conversation regarding these issues illustrate his skewed reasoning on these matters. Tessa enables him to see some things he's been unable to engage.
As expected, the end of this story is never quite the end, but there are certain satisfying conclusions to plot points and interrelationships.
There is only one drawback to the Patrick Bowers Series and that's the releasing of one novel per year. Though certainly understandable, since Steven's stories are so complex and give voices to many diverse and complicated characters and scenarios, it's difficult for me - who reads so many novels in between them - to remember some of the specifics concerning the past villains and how they either escaped, got released, or were never found. Although we're reminded of some of the past information, regrettably it doesn't always come back to total recall.
Steven James sports a Masters Degree in Storytelling and the Patrick Bowers Series demonstrates his perfected talent. The Queen is another example of his ability to weave intricate and intense details, derived from impeccable research, together with horrific villains and a cast of appealing, troubled, and believable characters. Patrick Bowers continues to be fleshed out in every new book, and each time we see him we can gauge the cracks in his carefully constructed shell and his reevaluation of his strengths and confrontation of his weaknesses. He continues to become a complete character.
Available September 2011 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.
Father, please continue to bless Steven in your ways. Continue to supply his stories and give him the means to write them. Watch over him and his family as he honors you in what he does. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.