The Warrior by Ty Patterson

So, it's still a day to go before the end of Black History month and here's another fantastic African American novelist. Enjoy... 

Ty Patterson is a writer who has literally just come on the scene. This is his first book and he says it was inspired and challenged by his wife and son. I'm going to be a 'famzer' (Nigerian speak for brownnoser) and call him my friend because it was clear when we struck up a conversation on twitter, that for a fella who's been compared with the likes of David Baldacci, James Patterson and Lee Child, he is remarkably humble and easy going.

I found that inspiring but not surprising. Anyone who has sold tea, dug trenches, sold leather goods and lived in more than one continent gains such an understanding of life and people that begets humility. Follow him on twitter @pattersonty67

Genre; Fiction. Published; Dec. 10, 2012. 

Plot/Synopsis

Zeb Carter is a private military contractor who is hired to find things and people gone missing or kidnapped. 

“We want you to go to the DRC, find out who those guys are, and what the fuck they’re up to. No action. Just investigate and report.”

He is sent to DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) to gather intel on other mercenaries who were sent there to keep the peace and train the DRC army but have gone rogue and are now hijacking mines and selling the ore, raping the women and girls and terrorizing the villagers in the process to instill fear and cooperation. 

In Congo and under guise of a charity worker helping to build thatch huts and schools, Major Zeb gets gossip  from the villagers who are sensitive to sympathy after being brutalized by soldiers-native and foreign alike. Some villagers even identified a few of the mercenaries from the agency's photos he showed them and by now Zeb has a full dossier on the soldiers and their atrocities. He decides to go on a surveillance to a few villages in north and south Kivu to see firsthand before heading back to the United States. 

After watching a couple of villages from afar, at the third village his love for action and inability to see evil go unpunished spurs him to go into the village. The devastation he meets in the huts in the form of hundreds of raped and battered women and young girls and dead children moves him to ignore the orders he's been given to play a passive role and gather intel only. He takes out half of a team of six that he meets in the process of raping and strangling women and girls while the other three members escape.

Back in New York, he gets debriefed and sets about forgetting what he saw in DRC but not the other half of the rogue team that he caught red-handed in the village raping women and girls that night in Congo. Zeb, working with Broker, a long time friend and ex-service colleague but now an informations expert identifies the leader of the pack as Carsten Holt and the team as ex-Seal. Zeb begins a hunt for him, which soon uncovers a plot that encompasses federal agencies and high ranking political figures. 

In an arranged meeting surrounded by the Feds, Mendes, one of the men he happened upon in his last night of surveillance in Congo, makes his demand to be given the kind of immunity deal that their leader, Holt had been given by the FBI or go public with information he has on the Al-Qeada dealings in Congo. He fatally underestimates Zeb when he tries to shoot him publicly and ends up dead before he can even fully train his gun on him. 

The Balthazars

Zeb's older sister and only living family, Cassandra used to be aide to the Secretary of State but is now an academician and once he gets back from Congo, he goes to pay her a visit. He meets a family, Connor, Lauren Balthazar that are her neighbors and their young son, Rory, forms a liking to him. Over the next few weeks, he's forced to pay them more visits and develops a friendship with the family. Coincidentally, Connor is a journalist who is writing an expose on mining in Africa by western companies with special reference to Alchemy, a mining company owned by a serving senator. The senator turns out to be corrupt to his eyeballs and involved in child labor and other crimes going on in the mines. Connor's wife and son get kidnapped when he publishes the story and tries to gets a statement from the senator about his involvement with the atrocities in the Congo mines.

A rogue mercenary 

Holt, the leader of the ex-Seal team that was operating in the village the night Zeb barges in on them is back to New York city and under protection of the FBI. Zeb and Broker have been researching and digging further information on him at the same time leaving messages for Holt to smoke him out of hiding. On their return from a camping trip with the Connors, all evidence that the journalist Connor had been waiting for to complete his expose is ready and in it incriminating evidence of the Senator working with Holt aka Joop who is apparently a Mr Fix-It hired by the company and to use child labor and whatever else necessary in the mines to avoid reduced production. 

The novel crescendoes when Zeb assisted by Broker goes on a rescue mission to Holt's house for Connor's wife and kid that were being held there. Zeb doesn't make it out alive but the mission was successful in that they kill Holt and rescue Lauren and Rory. At his funeral, lots of people who he has helped over the years turn up to bid him farewell and it is quite a moving scene when they find out the tough unsmiling investigator they knew was once married and had a child. His sister explains to them that his wife and child were captured and killed in front of him by terrorists a long time ago. 

Review

First off, the negative for me is that I don't get how this is the first in a series when the lead character dies at the end of the novel. Other than that, this was a great read.

Ty Patterson writes in easy style and carries his readers from Africa to New York with so much fluidity that one does not jump at the change. I liked that the main character had a depth to him and Patterson's use of music by having the lead character play such an exotic instrument was unusual yet interestingly entertaining..

Characterization always grabs my attention and the characters of this book were totally to my liking. Strong and well defined, military characters, several well spaced action scenes, and recurring humane qualities are some of my favorite things in a book. I read The Warrior in two days (yes, could've been less as it's not a big book but my 5-month old baby demands my attention at all times of the day :-) ). Ty Patterson has written a book that I can put amongst my Top Ten Thrillers. . 

The plot was realistic enough although the end left me yearning (I wanted to see that miraculously, Zeb didn't die, yeah yeah I know, cliche! cliche!) However, Broker and Bwana finishing off the last member of the rogue team was very satisfactory. I know I won't be forgetting Major Zeb anytime soon (he's the kind of character that sticks in your memory) and I can't wait to read the sequel.

Rating: 4 stars