West of Sin, an Explosive Crime Thriller by Wesley S. Lewis

The Bottom Line: A nail-biting mob thriller featuring a truly memorable hero you’ll want to read again and again.

When desperate commercial real estate agent Jennifer Williams stumbles into a robbery at a truck stop an hour outsideĀ ofĀ Vegas, her oddsĀ ofĀ survival don’t look good. The most menacingĀ ofĀ the three thieves reveals his colleagues’ name right in frontĀ ofĀ her, and a glimpseĀ ofĀ her designer panties is enough to distract him from the robbery itself. Just as Jennifer seems destined to be raped and murdered, she is miraculously saved by intrepid local shooting instructor Matt Crocker, who guns down all three men.

But the three bodies left in the wakeĀ ofĀ the shooting are far from the endĀ ofĀ Jennifer’s worries. She soon learns that the thieves were likely employed by Vladimir Dudka, a sleazy Russian mobster with ties to narcotics, sex trafficking and murder. Crocker fears that they might come after Jennifer next, and hides her in a brothel. When oneĀ ofĀ Jennifer’s colleagues turns up dead, Crocker knows that his worst fears have come true.

Debut novelist Wesley S. Lewis’ gritty thriller starts fast and never lets up. The main timeline, featuring Jennifer and Crocker’s battle with the Russian mob, is an explosive adventure that pays off repeatedly with nail-biting scenes that often manage to surprise.

WestĀ ofĀ Sin’sĀ backstory, detailing the dynamicsĀ ofĀ Jennifer’s love quadrangle with her boss, his soon-to-be-ex-wife and a co-worker, is titillating, but mainly serves to further establish Vegas as the epicenterĀ ofĀ moral decay, culminating in a boozy real estate conference where broken dreams are born.

Heroine Jennifer may occupy slightly moreĀ ofĀ the book’s literary real estate, but the real starĀ ofĀ Lewis’ novel is Crocker. As a heralded firearms expert who trains everyone from Boy Scouts to SWAT teams, Crocker is a rare original character in the thriller landscape, and a welcome departure from the private detective or ex-FBI hero archetype. The fact that Crocker has zero legal authority forces him into situations where he must rely on his wily personality, street smarts and vast personal network. That makes for fun reading and creates some truly memorable moments with the chips are down. Let’s hope that Lewis has more plans for Crocker in subsequent books.

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