Dukkha: Reverb the second Sam Reeves Martial Arts Thriller by Loren W. Christensen, picks up shortly after the events in “Dukkha – The Suffering” and takes the reader on a wild ride through the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The trip to get acquainted with his father, who he hadn’t known until the first book of this series, and the beautiful Mai, who is also introduced in the first novel, is anything but quiet and restful. Lai Van Tan, the mob boss, is still out for Reeves and his family, but it is also discovered that the criminal is also a sex trafficker and a group of young girls are about to be sent from the country. All of this makes for an exciting and engaging story that keeps you turning the pages from cover to cover and left wanting more.
Christensen’s back ground in law enforcement and martial arts comes through brilliantly as he weaves a story of unique and interesting characters through the setting of modern day Vietnam, but with hints of the past. I especially enjoyed how he wrote about the older Vietnamese War veterans, who though disfigured and bearing crippling injuries, were still warriors.
While I like the tension Christensen creates within the hero Reeves and his current aversion to firearms and killing, because it makes him more real and human, I do hope that he comes to grips with this in the next book and realizes that what he did was necessary and might be again. It is refreshing to have a hero that isn’t just “kill them all and let god sort them out” throughout the book, but I want to see him get over this to a certain degree.
The descriptions of Vietnam, characters and especially the martial arts scenes are outstanding. Christensen’s years of training and study shine through and make the book that much more enjoyable. There are actually some very good lessons contained within the pages of this story. The relationships unfold in a more natural manner, and the book definitely leaves one wanting to read the next in the series to see what will happen to these characters next.
If you like martial arts, action thrillers, and appreciate Asian culture, Dukkha: Reverb does a fantastic job of combining all three into a fast paced, riveting story that will keep you frantically turning pages to the very end. I can’t wait for book three!
Dukkha Reverb from amazon:
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