

It is Drew Chapman’s first book and one that mesmerizes the reader immediately with the back and forth secret movements by both the US and China. The King of Fear on / Indiebound.A novel about a war between the United States and China with no shots fired and battles fought with psychology, financial manipulation and computer hacking, circumstances very similar to the reality of today. The King of Fear is a fast, easy read for days lounging by the pool or nights you are looking for an alternative to all the terrorist-fueled TV shows on the air nowadays. But I wasn’t left too out of the loop here. Drew Chapman is not only a novelist, but also a film/TV writer, and this shows in the book’s breezy action and memorable, but likable characters.

The King of Fearis actually a sequel, to The Ascendant, and normally I’m hesitant to pick up sequels without reading the first in the series. Markov has big plans for America, and it is up to Reilly to stop them. He’s a hacker with his eye on the system itself. Ilya Markov is the villain to Reilly’s hero–a young chameleon of a conman, a terrorist who may be working for a European country or may be going rogue. He recognizes patterns in the stock market and in his daily life, and lately he’s seeing strange wisps and echoes of something big brewing. Big money movement that doesn’t make sense is swirling in his periphery vision. Garrett Reilly is the sort of genius savant we now expect from our thrillers-a tortured soul, haunted by a heavy history and his brilliant mind.

His aim isn’t a single tower or certain gathering of people, but our thrumming monetary system and the sense of order it provides. Something wicked this way comes, and it comes in the form of a single nefarious young man, and he heads directly into the heart of capitalism. But in Drew Chapman’s The King of Fear, terror gets a makeover. When we think terror attack, we think bombs and guns, loud noise and explosions.
