Wicked Leaks

Released last year in e-book format, Wicked Leaks, a thriller by Matt Bendoris, is getting the star treatment and a hardcover launch on September 5th. In my opinion, this star treatment is well deserved.

Wicked Leaks: A Thriller

The premise is timely and believable, and takes place in Scotland. Kelly is, what we’d call her in the USA, a hospice nurse and works the night shifts; her newest patient, Monahan, is a middle-aged man dying of advanced bone cancer. But Monahan has secrets, is ex-special forces, and claims he knows exactly who killed Princess Diana: he did. Monahan sends Kelly to see his “evidence”, which then promptly burns down. Kelly is smart enough to know she’s somehow stumbled into a situation she is unable to control, and she finds herself relying on her patient and his associates to survive.

As Kelly begins to find herself running for her life, Monahan gives her a hard drive full of government secrets, the type of secrets which could destroy the careers of high-ranking politicians and expose a number of crimes. There is also a new website, “Beast Shamer”, which endeavors to publicize state secrets. Connor and April are a team of investigative reports for Scotland’s biggest newspaper, and they’ve been digging into the beastshamer.com website. When not one but two car bombings are tied to Kelly, Connor and April know there’s a bigger story that needs to be told. And when Kelly reaches out to Connor with information about the hard drive, the investigative reporters find themselves searching not only for Kelly but also for the truth.

This book moves quickly. The first few chapters moved almost a little too quickly – each chapter is just a few pages long, and the point-of-view changes from one chapter to the next. And there are plenty of characters – Kelly, Monahan, April, Connor, police investigators, other staff at the newspaper, Kelly’s family members, some of Connor’s friends, April’s crazy dramatic Italian quasi-fiance Luigi, Monahan’s associates, a disturbing male nurse in a psychiatric ward . . . there are lots of characters in the book. This made it hard to really develop an understanding of the characters and their circumstances. For the first few chapters, I had to flip back to remind myself who everyone was. Once I got everyone straight, it was smooth sailing.

I did like the characters; they all played their roles admirably. And the premise, as I mentioned, so so believable. Is it feasible in my head that, somewhere, is a guy who’s been involved with less-than-kosher, politically-motivated “deeds” that has evidence of all the wicked things he’s done and whom the government would like very much to see disappear? And there’s another guy who’s trying to publish all these wicked secrets about the government and people in power on some kind of black-listed website? Yeah, I’d believe those things.

Also, the plot moves fast. There is no sitting around waiting to see which shoe falls first. Even when you think things will slow down or finally go to plan, that doesn’t happen. This is a story where nothing is ever quite what it seems, which is wonderful – there were surprises up until the very end. I love books where you have to think and guess and it still isn’t what you thought.

And can I please talk about how I need my very own April? I might love her. Woman who loves to eat? Isn’t afraid to have a lewd sense of humor? Is maybe not the most coordinated? Doesn’t have the best sense of style? In twenty years, this will probably be me. #LifeGoals

Overall: 8.5/10

*I received an advance copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

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