Kindle Edition
My rating: ★★★★
In this fifth, sexy, edge-of-your-seat thriller, one of Jack’s closest friends is getting married at a villa in Tuscany, and Jack’s best man speech seems like the most taxing part of the trip. But things get complicated when he romps with the maid of honor, Francesca, an Italian lingerie supermodel. She has a brother at the Vatican who’s in a difficult jam, and she convinces Jack to help him out.
It doesn’t take long before Jack gets entangled with a dark conspiracy against the pope, and the group behind it will kill anyone who gets in their way. To make matters worse, their top henchman, Diego, has his own horrendous scheme going on, elevating the evil tempest of death to something even more appalling.
In no time, Jack is running for his life, and everyone around him including Francesca ends up in jeopardy. Ultimately, it’s more than he can handle on his own, but with a little help from his friends in the intelligence community, maybe there’s a way to get out of this mess alive.
Coming from bestselling author Kevin Sterling, the Jack Lazar series had been touted as James Bond meets Fifty Shades of Grey. When I first heard about it, I had to think twice if I'm going to read this. Firstly because, I'm not really into the BDSM genre and secondly I didn't really like those bondage scenes in 50Shades. But I decided to take a chance and delve into this book and know more about Jack Lazar. He could be compared to James Bond with a strong character, appealed to the womanfolk and had looks and brains that suits his personality.
In Lazar's Darkness, a new pope had been selected. Cardinal Narducci believed he should have been the one selected on the conclave to be the next pope, but he was robbed of the title. On the streets, someone accused Marco Ferrera of conspiring against Cardinal Narducci, a chase was soon ensued and then, he got killed. Diego, the pursuer, after having killed Marco, was next seen sacrifizing a lady on the chains, tortured her and eventually killed her, much to his delight. Then he got a call from his boss to recruit an Antonio Sabatini. Jack Lazar, on the other hand, was invited to the wedding of his bestfriend in Italy and he was set to be paired with Francesca Sabatini, a hot & sexy lingerie model. Their first encounter left a sour note on Francesca's mouth, on their second meeting, they still got into the wrong foot but soon on their next reunion, there was a 180 degree turn. Before they knew it, they got tangled up in sheets and in the conspiracy in the Vatican, since Antonio is actually Francesca's brother, the personal butler of the pope.
This novel is a fast paced thriller and mystery and got lots of sex. Admittedly, I was bothered by the extremely explicit sex scenes. Bondage, menage-a-troi-whatchacallit? What I do know is, there's more than ample violence and sex in the book, but the essence of the story was still there. And what I did like in the book is, the author exerted meticulous attention to detail. The action scenes were full blast, Jack Lazar got everyone on their toes, and the mystery was resolved, although there were still some missing links. Overall, Lazar's Darkness is a very entertaining read, and one that would make the reader feel hot and bothered.
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To know more about the critically-acclaimed author, Kevin Sterling, you can visit him at:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1606124.Kevin_Sterling/blog
And for his Lazar series, feel free to check out his website at: http://www.jacklazar.com/
