- Title:
- Corrector (Jake Waters Book 1)
- By:
- Bob Blink
- Pages:
- 322
- Rating:
- 4
Multiple victims killed by another angry gunman at the local mall. What if there were someone out there who could prevent the slaughter, even after it happened? Is Jake Waters a hero or a hardened criminal? Unfortunately, those who might consider him the former are usually blissfully unaware he has passed through their lives and has changed their destinies in such a dramatic way. Regrettably, the police and FBI see his actions in a wholly different light, and while they have yet to determine whom the mysterious killer is, they continue their search and are building up both a profile and a backlog of unsolved cases. They are perplexed at his actions and how he has had the advanced knowledge to perform his surgical removals. Jake, ex-military and a survivor of the war in Afghanistan, tries to pursue his own destiny as a freelance programmer who writes computer games and consults with NASA on special projects. He is blessed or cursed with a special skill, depending on your perspective, one which makes him aware of events that no one else is. As a result, he sometimes feels it necessary to take action on his own. Those he removes have been planning numerous horrific deaths, and he does not feel bad by his actions. He also suspects the police will one day stumble upon his identity or catch him in the middle of one of his missions. Then he will have to rely on his ability to elude them. For the most part, Jake is an average guy. Except for his ability to back-track, of course. That makes him different from everyone else and has not only saved his own future, but has often provided him the means to help others. Unfortunately, he’s learned that providing that help came at a large personal cost and not a little risk. For the most part, he feels the results are worth it. Jake’s own life has become more complex of late. He has become seriously interested in a young woman, Karin Wolter, who he hopes to bring closer to him. For their relationship to progress, Jake feels it will be necessary to reveal what he can do, and what he has done in the past. He is concerned how she might react once he reveals his past to her. She has never understood violence, and has expressed some concerns over what he had been forced to do in the military. After her mother is killed, Jack’s close friend Cheryl comes to him for help in ensuring the death doesn’t happen. When his attempt to help doesn’t go as expected, Jake learns of another event that forces his hand. It becomes necessary to reveal himself to the FBI in the hopes he can gain their trust and help to prevent the impending disaster from taking place. Even if he is able to turn aside the catastrophe, he is uncertain what his own future will become once the FBI has their hands on the man they have been seeking for so long.
I enjoyed this quite a lot. It did have the All-American Dreamboy feel of the Afghanistan vet now doing something heroic, but for all that, it was a clever use of a form of time travel. Very gun-heavy, one gets the impression Blink dislikes hats and adores firearms. I did have one query – there’s a part of the work where Jake books a room in a hotel for a whole week, which seems not to impact the room given to his friends, as they have the same room whether he booked his out or not. Causality is never really addressed in the work, and so that did make me pause for thought.
I’d love to read more and the ending is open for a sequel; it would also be totally fascinating to see the end of Jake’s life if he manages to get old without getting himself killed or kidnapped by the government.