If Jack Had by Steven Rappaport // Reviews

Jack is a journalist and also a contract killer. This is the story of his double life and how he managed to live both at once.

I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. My opinion is in no way biased.

Genre: Adult Fiction, Contemporary, Crime

Publisher: Black Rose Writing

Publication Date: June 4, 2015

211 pages, paperback

series: –

Synopsis: Goodreads

I was contacted by the publisher and asked if I wanted to review this book. The synopsis sounded interesting and although this is out of my comfort zone, I have never read a book about an assassin, but was curious about it and so agreed to review it.

Jack is a character with a lot of facets. He’s a journalist by day and a killer by night.
He sees the morality of things on one hand, but in other aspects of his life (a.k.a. the killing part) he has no qualms to do what he has to do.

I did enjoy the story overall. Especially the parts about his family and his family life. It was interesting to get to know him. Although in the end I didn’t feel connected to the character of Jack at all.

What irritated me the most was the constant jumping from one storyline to another and also jumping from Jack being over ninety to him being fifty, sixty, then back to twenty again. It sometimes took a bit to get settled in a time period, but then I was thrown into another part of Jack’s life.

The writing was alright. I didn’t have any problems following the story at all, it just didn’t appeal to me. The sentences seemed jumbled at times and at times the voice of the character didn’t fit the character at all.

All in all I liked especially the family dynamics; there were also some jobs Jack had to do that were told in detail, but I enjoyed reading about his personal life more. The ending seemed not believable to me, unfortunately.

As this was not a book I would usually pick up, it was still an alright read. I haven’t read many books about spies, contract killers or something similar, so this definitely was a nice experience and this story was an okay read for me overall.