I would like to thank Andrew from Aries for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Aries

Published – Out Now

Price – £18.99 hardback £3.39 Kindle eBook

His job is to protect them.

As a secret service agent, Nick Averose spent a decade guarding the most powerful people in the US. Now, he's a mock killer, testing the security around the highest officials to find vulnerabilities, before America's enemies can.

But now someone's out to get him.

Nick's latest assignment leads him to the home of a former CIA director. But when he breaches the director's study, Nick is entangled in a vicious crime. One that will shake Washington to its foundations.

He's the perfect scapegoat.

Nick needs to find out who is framing him for the crime and why. If he can't uncover the truth, a dark conspiracy will consume him and everyone else within the Oval Office...

It is an interesting question why we like thrillers where the main characters are plunged into the deep end. Perhaps we all like to think someone else is having to deal with the chaos life throws a us and we all dream that we had that special set of skills to take control of events? In Matthew Quirk’s Hour of the Assassin, we get one such specialist whose unusual job allows him to be placed as scapegoat in a conspiracy but people soon realise that he is more knight rather than pawn.

Nick Averose is having a standard day tyring to infiltrate the home of an CIA director and kill them. His job is actually to test security systems and show the targets how robust or not their teams and equipment is. All was going well until at the last minute his target is killed by a mysterious group of assassins trailing on the back of his own efforts. Nick manages to escape but soon realises that as all traces of this job are vanishing, he is being framed for an explosive political murder. Nick though has many years of experience investigating and also of fighting back so seeks to clear his name and discover exactly why he was framed.

This was a fun high-octane tale of the wronged man on a quest to prove his innocence. Quirk pushes the story along from the off with Nick’s night going very wrong and then pushes him into a series of small set pieces dealing with a range of enemies. As we see a parallel plot of a ambitious politician making final moves with his spin doctor to declare a presidential bid we suspect the stories soon entwine and they do collide as secrets involving Nick get revealed. This makes the story both larger and we see slightly more personal to Nick as he thinks he knows who connects things. There is a ping pong game of the conspiracy attacking and Nick bouncing right back with counterattack and attempt to find out more.

Character wise Nick comes across as your standard heroic type but has a slightly struggling relationship with his wife; a doting young IT expert and a former soldier best friend who loves to swear and tell bad jokes. Up against them are the more sinister spin doctor and an professional hit man as skilled as Nick who wants all the power and not afraid to get his hands dirty; this character really adds the sense of tension whenever he comes on page as you feel he could beat Nick. This sets up some nice balanced protagonists and we weave from action to cybercrime very niftily. There are also some juicy spoilers that ramp the tension up I was pleased not to see coming.

I would though have liked a little less info-dumping of key facts and relevant plot points just before they are needed. A little more fleshing out of who Nick is outside of being under pressure would have helped as he can be a very standard hero knowing exactly what to do – the good news is that this kind of tale is always fairly enjoyable and compulsive to read. Its only after the reveals we see him a little more lost and bewildered giving him some much-needed humanity but by the end you are rooting for him to win.

I raced through this entertaining story in just a few hours, and I think thriller fans looking for a quick adrenaline fix should enjoy themselves putting the pieces together and enjoying the action and deceptions both sides throw at each other until a deadly finale unwinds. A good solid fun story to explore.