Book #41 – Deliver Us From Evil

The latest Balducci, this one continuing the story of Shaw, the unknown, undercover operative that tries to keep the world safe. In Deliver Us From Evil, Shaw is not happy, as usual, finishing an assignment and immediately off on another, this time after a Canadian businessman that deals in young women, but is now looking to get into nuclear arms. He rarely leaves Vancouver, so his vacation in the South of France is a chance to get him.
However we have another group, a vigilante group that seeks out monsters of the world and kills them, in the mix. This group kills a former Nazi at the open, and then is after the Canadian, who is actually a butcher from the former Soviet Union that killed thousands.
The story is interesting, jumping between the Canadian/Soviet’s view, the lady that is point for the vigilantes, and Shaw. Balducci does a good job jumping between the groups, compartmentalizing information between them so the reader sees a lot, but not everything. It’s quite a journey of two groups that suspect each other, but then fail to kill the target. However then they must track him down, and work together.
The book had a lot of reviews that warned of the graphic nature of the book. I was wondering how that fit with Balducci, and I’ll say I don’t think this book is graphic at all. The topics might upset people, and there’s more blood that in most of his other books, but it’s not graphic by any means. It’s well written through the beginning, but near the end seems to drift from the reality that’s set in the book. The ending didn’t seem to fit with the beginning to me.
However, still a good thriller to read.