Without Hesitation

Mark Rosendorf

Review is by Molly

Mark Rosendorf’s Without Hesitation: The Rasner Effect II, sequel to The Rasner Effect begins with a safety officer telling Clara Blue to relax.  But, how?   With his knee pressed against her temple, relaxing was not easy to do.

From that point we remember that the hired killers comprising Duke Organization left a trail of corpses behind when they freed her from Brookhill Children's Psychiatric residence.  So how did Clara Blue find herself returned to the hateful place.  One attempt to escape follows another only to be stopped by a horrifying security system and guards who have little tolerance for escape attempts or those who perpetrate them.

Clara’s attempts to escape do not succeed sending her into seclusion time after time where she becomes progressively more delusional whilst trussed in a strait jacket laying in the padded cell.

Arrival to Brookhill of Jennifer Duke, daughter of the founder of the Duke Organization gives Clara hope.  Surely Jen has come to take her out of this miserable place.  But it doesn’t take long for Clara to realize Jen has something else in mind.  Working as a therapist Jennifer Duke is determined to regroup a Duke Organization and track down Jake Scarberry, Rick Rasner’s old nemesis and the cause for both Rick’s demise and the break up of the Duke Organization.

While Jake hides in a witness protection situation working as a bouncer, Jennifer fixates on her one goal: to kill Jake and Clara sets about to try to enlist recruits for Jen’s revived mercenary troop.

Jake Scarberry, has been a living an ordinary life under the witness protection program. It is a life he enjoys and has no plans leave; if Jennifer Duke gets her way, Jake may have no choice but to return to the life he wants to leave behind.

Clara Blue and the band of murderous adolescents housed at Brookhill agree that Jen and her plan to get them out of the facility is something they all want.  However, despite Jennifer’s experience and a plan that sounds like it should work, nothing seems to go as it should. 

Before long Jake is out of the witness protection program, Brookhill is in disarray, Rick Rasner is more than a memory, and Clara and a not so merry band find their lives entwining in a gore filled thriller.

Writer Rosendorf has again crafted a properly delivered spine tingling work filled with twists and turns, characters who appear as they are not, and others who perform as expected.  Locales are well detailed, action is intense, red herrings are tossed in to create some unexpected situations and turn arounds.  How they are to be resolved will no doubt be revealed in the next work which writer Rosendorf says is coming soon.

Happy to recommend Mark Rosendorf’s Without Hesitation: The Rasner Effect II for those enjoy plenty of action, surprising outcome and just plain good writing filled with suspense, characters to hate and some to almost like and a keep ‘em guessing quality.  Not the book for a dark and stormy night.