Skin in the Game (A Cain/Harper Thriller, #1) By D.P. Lyle
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“Skin in the Game” by D. P. Lyle entices readers with a skillful story set in a small town in Tennessee. It is filled with beautiful geography but also with terror, madness, and cunning. The account is firmly grounded with a “down-home storytelling” style; it is entertaining and focused but with colorful details that keep readers captivated. The action is conversation driven, so readers hear what people say to each other, say about each other and, and say about the events. Incidents are described from various points of view with all intertwined into a frightening and intricate plot line. The investigative process on all levels is detailed, specific, and at times almost clinical.
The characters provide the foundation of the story. This is not just the account of a terrible crime; it is the story of those who perpetrated it, suffered because of it, and most importantly, those who solved it. The main characters, Bobby Cain and his sister Harper McCoy, are flawed, but dedicated, focused, and well skilled. They have intricate backstories that endear them to readers. Readers learn how they grew into their present day selves, and how they developed the skills needed for the task at hand. Additional characters, both good and not so good, are complex, true-to-life, and a supplement to the action.
Of course Lyle includes in a nice plug for books and authors when characters are cautioned to be careful what they say;
“Mother’s a crime writer. You might end up in one of her books.”There is also a reminder for readers as well;
“I expect you to go to Amazon and give it five stars.”
I received a review copy of “Skin in the Game” from D. P. Lyle and Suspense Publishing. It was a little creepy, but still enjoyable to read, and yes, per the narrative’s instructions, I gave it five stars.
D.P. Lyle Nobody does creepy characters like Dp Lyle. This is one you will not want to miss either. Spooky good. D.P. Lyle From BookTrib:
Imagine a person sick enough to buy kidnapped women, tattoo them like animals and then release them as sporting prey. That’s the basis of D.P. Lyle’s aptly titled new thriller Skin in the Game (Suspense Publishing), and it’s a premise so horrific and disturbing you’ll have to stop at times to take a breath.
You’ll keep reading in large part because you can’t imagine an antagonist who’s more deserving of an unhappy ending, and you’ll want to know if the story turns out that way.
Ultimately, Skin in the Game is about hunting and pits those who hunt in the garden of good against those who choose the garden of evil. Like rubberneckers at a traffic accident, we follow the killer and his demented friends stalking women forced to run for their lives. However, the hunters become the hunted thanks to the private investigative team of Bobby Cain and Harper McCoy.
A veteran thriller writer and teacher on the art of writing crime fiction, Lyle uses Skin in the Game to introduce these two new heroes, and the Cain-McCoy pairing offers rich dynamics for future stories.
Raised by itinerant gypsies as siblings, Cain and McCoy are both seasoned veterans of dark operations who left government service to become private investigative “fixers” who don’t hesitate to use extra-normal procedures to get the results their clients want. Their sibling relationship provides an interesting departure from the usual special-ops buddy pairings or male-female partnerships that mainly focus on sexual tension. Bobby Cain also destroys the cliché about never bringing a knife to a gunfight. His knife-tossing superpower serves him well and sharpens the story (pun intended).
As the story opens, Cain is enlisted by retired Gen. William Kessler, a legendary figure in military and espionage circles who helped Cain launch his career, to locate his missing granddaughter. Cindy Grant is a sophomore at Vanderbilt University, and Cain and McCoy soon discover alarming details: She was lured into joining several other attractive coeds who work as escorts to rich men. It seemed like a lark; a chance for some thrills and easy money. Instead, Cindy has become a victim of human trafficking, setting off a chain of events that’s far worse than Kessler could ever imagine.
Once the General learns the brutal details, it reinforces his determination that Cain and McCoy must find the perpetrators and deal with them using suffering at least equal to the pain inflicted. Going back and forth between Nashville and rural Tennessee, they identify possible suspects. Evidence is scant, so they take big risks to get closer to the human trafficking network recruiting the young women. Rural Tennessee settings are important parts of the story. Cain and McCoy find themselves operating on the killer’s home turf.
Fortunately for them, most of the bad actors in this story aren’t brilliant opponents. Although their actions are profoundly evil, they do things that more sophisticated or thoughtful criminals wouldn’t do. That makes some of the set pieces less plausible and a bit more predictable. But it won’t stop you from reading to the end.
Cain and McCoy are strong believers in the “ends justify the means” school of moral choices. Although the book is certainly not science fiction, its broad strokes reminded me of the reboot of Battlestar Galactica, a sci-fi series that came of age shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and often had its characters face dilemmas in which they had to decide if extreme measures were justified to combat extreme evil.
Watching Lyle’s main characters face such choices provides extra dimension and energy to the story. How far will the sibling team go to carry out the demands of Gen. Kessler and their own definitions of justice? In their future adventures, it won’t be surprising if Cain and McCoy again face the issue of whether “revenge” and “justice” can truly be synonyms, or at least live as neighbors on the same street. D.P. Lyle Bobby Cain and Harper McCoy were both raised in a gypsy family and had all the connections of brother and sister. Having been separated to their own endeavors and training these two now form a team known for solving problems and righting wrongs. Lyle presents a very interesting detective story that leads the reader down a less traveled road. A copy of this book was provided by Suspense Publishing via NetGalley with no requirements for a review. Comments here are my honest opinion. Look for more in this A CAIN/HARPER THRILLER (#1) series. D.P. Lyle Imagine a person sick enough to buy kidnapped women, tattoo them like animals and then release them as sporting prey. That’s the basis of D.P. Lyle’s aptly titled new thriller Skin in the Game (Suspense Publishing), and it’s a premise so horrific and disturbing you’ll have to stop at times to take a breath.
You’ll keep reading in large part because you can’t imagine an antagonist who’s more deserving of an unhappy ending, and you’ll want to know if the story turns out that way.
Ultimately, Skin in the Game is about hunting and pits those who hunt in the garden of good against those who choose the garden of evil. Like rubberneckers at a traffic accident, we follow the killer and his demented friends stalking women forced to run for their lives. However, the hunters become the hunted thanks to the private investigative team of Bobby Cain and Harper McCoy.
A veteran thriller writer and teacher on the art of writing crime fiction, Lyle uses Skin in the Game to introduce these two new heroes, and the Cain-McCoy pairing offers rich dynamics for future stories.
Raised by itinerant gypsies as siblings, Cain and McCoy are both seasoned veterans of dark operations who left government service to become private investigative “fixers” who don’t hesitate to use extra-normal procedures to get the results their clients want. Their sibling relationship provides an interesting departure from the usual special-ops buddy pairings or male-female partnerships that mainly focus on sexual tension. Bobby Cain also destroys the cliché about never bringing a knife to a gunfight. His knife-tossing superpower serves him well and sharpens the story (pun intended).
The rest of the review: https://booktrib.com/2019/10/sibling-... D.P. Lyle
Just finished this book and I'm not sure what to say, except maybe wow!
This was gripping, and twisted, and thrilling. I loved the main characters and will be looking for more books with them as the lead. I loved the writing style, and was totally drawn into the story.
I've read hundreds, maybe thousands of detective novels and this ranks right up there.
I want to thank the publisher and #netgalley for the advance copy. This didn't affect my review. D.P. Lyle It was at first the genre, of course, that got me to stumble across Skin in the Game. But it was the description of Cain and Harper's background that got me to click the request button from Netgalley. Siblings working together as a pair of private detectives (of sorts)? Interesting. Raised together in a makeshift family of Gypsies? I'm in. I almost forgot about the serial killer they had to catch.
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Characters-wise, I won't go into Cain and Harper's professional skills because you'd expect them to be good - and they were better. What I appreciated most was that they were not... These coolly distant agents who had seen too much in the world to be emotionally available to the rest of it anymore? I know they were good at blending in with the more ordinary us - to seem socially normal for example, when needed - but while they were obviously hardened by their experiences, they could still be genuinely warm - they were. I think this makes it obvious that I was (half) expecting a pair of coldhearted, all-business-like agents who came in, got the deeds done, went out with a splatter and a bang XD Yes yes, I didn't know better.
Cain and Harper aside, I sure want to hear from Mama B again, hopefully from Chief Laura Cutler and her delightful mother too >_<
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I wondered what our serial killer was trying to accomplish when first meeting him on the page. It sounded ugly, what he was working his victim into. But further in, when I realized his... Intention, I couldn't help but imagine in my head, and even Cain thought the outcome was beautiful when he saw the final presentation. Putting it like this makes me nauseous, but I hope I get somebody interested in the book. Go pick it up |:
There are also issues of prostitution and human-trafficking. Where they almost always lead to devastate me, more so the loved ones left behind. The book gave a good insight on one of the ways they operate.
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And so. 4 and half stars. Setting, characters, plot all well-developed and engrossing. Unique, in this case - at least to me. This is the first work by D.P. Lyle that I've read. It won't be the last.
Thank you Netgalley (: D.P. Lyle Skin in the Game by D.P. Lyle
A Cain/Harper Thriller #1
Excellent introduction to a new series by an author I have never read before but look forward to reading again in the future. This story grabbed my on the first page and kept me quickly turning pages till the very end. The book eventually reminded me of a movie I saw with my father decades ago. One that had Peter Fonda in it – a movie that I have never been able to forget. This book will no doubt linger like that movie did. It was dark and disturbing and I was definitely hoping that Cain and Harper would manage to do the job they set out to accomplish.
Bad things happen to people in big cities and small towns. Sometimes the expertise of people like Cain and Harper is needed to “fix things” and if I ever needed to have someone on my side I would hope to find someone as accomplished as these two. This book was dark and gritty and made me thankful that I have not run into situations like the ones presented in this story.
I loved Cain and Harper and look forward to reading more about them in future books in this series. They are strong, capable and willing to do what it takes. I am interested in learning more about both of them and wonder what the next book will be about.
Did I enjoy this book? Yes
Would I read more in this series? Definitely
Thank you to NetGalley and Suspense Publishing for the ARC – This is my honest review.
5 Stars D.P. Lyle A retired general calls on former special ops siblings with unique skill sets to locate his missing granddaughter. Fast-paced read with a decent payoff at the end. A little too much backstory injected throughout the novel for my tastes and I found myself skimming over those parts. The first three chapters were a bit choppy and disjointed, but the story smooths out after that.
I actually would've rated it a 3.5 but that wasn't an option.
It wasn't exactly my usual read, so others may like it more than I did. Worth reading though. D.P. Lyle Full of intrigue - and a very creepy antagonist! An excellent read! D.P. Lyle spins a very good yarn with lots of interesting twists and a satisfying conclusion. The real highlight of the read for me was the backstory of the two protagonists, Harper and Cain. Their lifelines were woven expertly into the fabric of the story and made the story even better. Good read - you'll find yourself reading just one more chapter until you're done... D.P. Lyle
Raised as siblings by an itinerant “gypsy” family, knife expert Bobby Cain, trained by the US military in the lethal art of covert eliminations, and Harper McCoy, nurtured by the US Navy and the CIA to run black ops and wage psychological warfare, are now civilians. Of a sort. Employing the skills learned from the “family” and their training, they now fix the unfixable. Case in point: Retired General William Kessler hires the duo to track down his missing granddaughter, a Vanderbilt University co-ed. Their search leads them to a small, bucolic, lake-side town in central Tennessee and into a world of prostitution, human trafficking, and serial murder. The question then becomes: Will their considerable skills be enough for Cain and Harper to save the young woman, and themselves, from a sociopath with “home field” advantage, a hunter’s skills, and his own deeply disturbing agenda? Skin in the Game (A Cain/Harper Thriller, #1)
