Fade [Kindle Edition]

I have read or listened to all of Kyle Mill's books and his newest book--Fade--is among the best! In Salam al Fayed (Fade) Mills has created an exciting, somewhat zany, and resourceful character. This is a book about revenge and the settling of old scores between men who were once partners and friends. Fade is the ex-seal and elite special ops agent whose been pushed too far, one too many times.

In the beginning of the book Fade's career comes to an abrupt halt when he is nearly killed while attempting the rescue of a young Arab girl. In a typical bureaucratic snafu (situation normal all "messed" up), the government denies him the complicated medical procedure that would have returned him to work and full health and as a result he is on his own with nothing to show for a life devoted to the most dangerous missions imaginable. Now, years later, the government has once again come calling for his unique services. Only this time it's Fade who has no desire to help. Threatened and pursued by the government and in turn the police (on trumped up government charges/lies), Fade does the only thing he was ever trained to do when attacked. He attacks back, and with all the skill and imagination that had at one time made him the very best in the business!

Thrilling and absorbing weekend end read!

After a brilliant debut novel, Kyle Mlls wrote three or four good but not great books. Not so for his last two. These are page turners deluxe. Three weeks ago I read and reviewed his tongue and cheek novel about big tobacco, called Smoke Screen and was extremely impressed. Now I've just finished his latest book, "Fade" and I am again impressed.

The title "Fade" is the name of the protagonist - Salem al Fayad, Fade for short - an ex CIA killing machine. Fade is a born and raised in the US, Christian Arab, who after being operational in the Middle East in the late nineties, found himself seriously wounded - a bullet near the spine - which threatened to paralyze him. There was an experimental operation which could remove the bullet and the danger but his friend and handler Matt Egan was unable to get anyone to pay for it.

Fast forward to present day; Matt is now working for Homeland Security and he and his boss, Hillel Strand have been tasked with setting up an overseas ongoing Middle Eastern operation and while reviewing the files of possible candidates, Matt's boss, to Matt's chagrin zeros in on Salem al Fayad, deciding he would be the perfect recruit. Matt tries to dissuade Strand but he is unyielding and insists on a visit to meet his new would be recruit.

Fade (Salem al Fayad) is bitter about his previous shoddy treatment by his country. When the government wouldn't pay for his operation, he went to work for a Columbian drug lord, in Columbia, helping him eliminate some of his competition, in order to raise enough money for the operation but alas, when he finally amassed the needed amount, it was too late as scar tissue, congregating around the bullet made the operation impossible. So when his old friend Matt and the imperious Hillel Strand showed up trying to enlist his services, they were sent packing in no uncertain terms.

Hillel Strand was not used to not getting his way, so he arranged for Fade to be arrested on some phony murder charge, wherein he would clear Fade, thereby making him indebted but as if in response to Murphy's Law, the worst case scenario ensues, putting Fade on the run and Strand hiding out from Fade, who now has promised to kill him. (This is the one weakness I found in the story - The sheriff sending out a SWAT team in the middle of the night to arrest a man on an anonymous phone tip)

Even though "Fade" is only 311 pages long, Kyle Mills manages to give the reader a good feel for his characters. Both Egan and Fade are likable as is Karen Manning, who enters the story as the head of a SWAT team sent to arrest Fade. The villain, of course, is the self important Hillel Strand, with runner-up honors to Manning's boss, Sheriff Pickering. Egan is put in the middle of the battle between Fade and Strand and you don't know which way he will jump.

As with Mill's previous six books the narrative is strong, smooth and fluid, without being wordy. As mentioned the book is only 311 pages and that is because he doesn't drag the reader into loquacious dialogue or go off in unnecessary directions. Instead he seems to reel the reader in by increasing the suspense on a chapter by chapter basis, in which the reader finds it difficult to take a break.

I'm further impressed that Mills seems to have an unending array of divergent plots. This is his seventh book and while some best selling writers seem to rehash different versions of the same plot, like Harlan Coben, Mills has not repeated any characters, nor has any of his wildly diverse plots have any similarities. So far, when you pick up a book by Mills, you are reading a fresh, new and well written story. Expect Kyle Mills to make the NY Times bestseller list in the future and eventually become a mainstay.

The story told in FADE by Kyle Mills initially seems...well, familiar. A Special Ops guy --- in this case, a Navy SEAL --- is retired, quietly living his life and attempting to exorcise his personal and professional demons, when Uncle Sam comes calling, wanting to bring him in for one last mission. The ex-op, who is the best ever at what he does, refuses. The government tries to force him into it, and things go downhill from there, with the ex-op taking on the Army, or a town, or whatever. Like I said, it sounds familiar. At first. But FADE cannot be dismissed as another Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle. By the time movies like Commando or First Blood end, FADE is just getting warmed up.

Fade is Salam Al Fayad, an off-the-scale soldier who was forced to retire as the result of a grievous gunshot wound sustained in the line of duty. A bureaucratic snafu denied him the medical attention he needed; as a result, the bullet lies buried in scar tissue near his spine, causing him irrevocable nerve damage and bringing him closer to paralysis with each passing day. When Homeland Security decides to create a covert military surgical strike team, a career bureaucrat named Hillel Strand thinks that Fade is just the man for the job and assists on recruiting him, over the objections of Matt Egan. Egan, who had worked with Fade in the field and was at one time Fade's best friend, is well aware of Fade's bitterness toward his former employer --- a bitterness that includes Egan, who Fade blames (incorrectly) for the denial of his medical treatment.

Strand and Egan nonetheless approach Fade, who is living in solitude, eking out a living by building and repairing furniture while stoically awaiting the paralysis that will eventually result from his injury. When Fade predictably rebuffs the pair, Strand engineers a wrong-headed operation that sends a local police SWAT team to arrest Fade on trumped-up charges, a maneuver that is supposed to force Fade back into the fold of the U.S. government. Fade, however, believes that the SWAT team invading his home is actually an assassination squad, and successfully wipes out the entire crew, save for one: Karen Manning, the SWAT team leader, who is quickly taken hostage by Fade. Manning slowly begins to realize that Fade was set up, but it is too late.

Strand, hoping to cover up his duplicity in the action that has gone so horribly wrong, has set the might and majesty of the Federal Government against Fade. Well aware that his days are numbered, Fade has only his wits and planning abilities to aid him in his final quest, which is to obtain the ultimate revenge against Strand.

It would be easy to classify FADE as an extremely entertaining novel; indeed, it is a fast-paced work, one during which the reader never knows what will happen from one moment to the next. But Mills brings an element of moral ambivalence to the work that places it several steps above the garden variety explosions-and-karate one normally encounters in the genre. Almost all of the primary characters in FADE --- with the exception of Strand, and one other, whom we do not meet until the end of the book --- are innocents, cast against each other in a deadly dance where fates seem preordained and no one escapes entirely unscathed.

FADE, in its way, is a modern re-telling of the Frankenstein myth, done up in geopolitical dress and given a new relevance for our times. While there is plenty of action here for fans of the thriller genre, there is much for thoughtful, if disturbing, reflection as well. Recommended.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub