A stolen piece of history, an abducted actress and international intrigue… When the Deringer pistol that shot Abraham Lincoln is stolen and ends up in the hands of a Russian military general, covert agent Blake Deco is tasked by the FBI to head to the Balkans to recover the historical weapon. Meanwhile, the United States media is abuzz with news of the mysterious disappearance of Hollywood movie star, Goldie St. Helen. After Blake’s return from overseas, he receives a tip from a Mexican friend that a drug lord, obsessed with the beautiful actress, is holding her captive in Tijuana. With the help of a reluctant army friend, Blake mounts a daring rescue. What he doesn’t expect is to have feelings for Goldie—or that a killer is hunting them.
Paperback, 254 pages Published December 1st 2017 by Imajin Books
Current Goodreads Rating: 3.89 Stars
Purchase Link: Amazon
eBooks are a weakness of mine. I agree to read so many and after all the daily free Amazon downloads and the hundreds of other ebooks on my devices, books get lost. I promise that this book did not take four months to read. I actually got about halfway through it, then for the past few months have been buried in library books, that with no strings attached always get first priority because of their due dates. Anyways, last weekend I finally found out that I never finished this book. I ended up starting it from the beginning again because it had been so long and I had finished the entire thing within 24 hours. Gun Kiss is a lighter, quick read and was full of adventure that made the time fly by. Exceptional story line. I loved the action and fast pace of the developments constantly building off of one another. Khaled Talib fit so much into this book that it was so fun to read because there was never a dull spot. Gun Kiss held a fun, unique backstory that had you guessing what direction it would take next full of unexpected twists and turns. I did enjoy the plot points, but the thing that held Gun Kiss from perfection was the rush that although invigorating came with some lack of depth. Points were getting introduced so rapidly and each scene would bounce to the next, when sometimes the low moments could have held the potential to carry even more epic high times. I wanted even more development. I wanted the plotting and scheming (even though they went into things with no plan the majority of the time), so that I would feel more apart of the cast and feel more involved.
"Singapore-born Khaled Talib’s third novel is a departure from his earlier two novels – Smokescreen and Incognito – which has been described as political thrillers, Gun Kiss is more genre bender with intrigues and counter intrigues played out against a backdrop of the war on drugs.
Khaled took just six months to complete Gun Kiss as he himself got caught up in Blake Deco’s adventure. “Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have been able to write a 80,000-word novel in such a short time. My first two novels took me a few years to complete. With Gun Kiss, I was as supercharged as the book’s main character. I worked on the story every single day. The characters, the locations, the dialogue and action had me on a high, so much so that I often had to remind myself to surface for air and food. I hope Gun Kiss readers will get to feel the same high as I did and enjoy reading it as much as I did in writing the book.”
Khaled Talib is a member of the International Thriller Writers and the Crime Writers Association. He is a former journalist turned public relations practitioner. To learn more about the author, please visit www.khaledtalibthriller.com. The rights of the author’s first two novels are represented by The Evan Marshall Agency."