Well, I guess SOMEBODY had to read “Trigger Warning”

so I think it is high time for another bad book reading I've heard a lot of buzz around this book and it's negative buzz it's like wasps instead of bumblebees for multiple reasons which I will get into later I kind of debated whether or not I should cover this book at all I'll go ahead and say that one of them is that I expected a lot of people to make videos about this book as I was hearing all the buzz I was waiting for a million videos to roll out of people reading it reviewing it whatever and I waited for that to happen and it didn't it seemed like a lot of people didn't go beyond reading the sample pages on Amazon this isn't a genre that I usually cover but I too read the sample pages on Amazon and they were so terrible and I thought they were so funny that I had to read it trigger warning was written by William W Johnstone with J a John Stone credited underneath as a co-author William John Stone is a prolific author of from what I can tell cowboy books this is not a cowboy book let me read you this summary from the best-selling authors of the doomsday bunker Black Friday and stand your ground comes the explosive story of a College under siege and freedom under fire political correctness won't save you that's just all in caps it's not really part of the summary it's like former Army Ranger Jake rivers is not your typical kellton college student he is not spoiled coddled or ultra lib like his classmates who sneer at the soldier boy so they really call him soldier boy is that a reference to the rapper rivers is not triggered by microaggressions he is not outraged by male priviledge and cisgender bathrooms he does not need a safe space or coloring books Jake needs an education and there is a typo in the summary Jake's is plural and when terror strikes the school needs Jake without warning the sounds of gunfire plunged the campus into a battlezone a violent gang of Marauders invade the main hall taking students as hostages for big ransom money as a veteran and Patriot Jake won't give in to their demands but to fight back he needs to enlist his fellow classmates to school these special snowflakes in the not so liberal art of war this time the aggression isn't micro it's life-or-death and only the strong survive and next to the barcode it says live free read hard I'm cautiously stoked for this one I was going to get into the backstory of this book's publication which is a doozy but I decided it would be funnier if I saved it for the end so yes this video has twists let's just get right into the book oh and also gonna add this in before we begin in case you couldn't tell from the summary it does involve imagery of gun wielding bad guys inside of a school setting so if that is just something you find disturbing you're probably not going to want to engage with this so here is your chance to click away before we proceed a short sharp cry in the night made Jake rivers look up from the book he was reading to be honest he was glad for the distraction he was on the verge of throwing the book against the wall of his dormant disgust since it was a hard copy a thick trade paperback he had bought in the university bookstore for an outrageous price and not something he was reading on his phone or tablet he could have done that without breaking anything already this is a lot that's probably the nerdiest sentiment I've ever heard expressed in a book from here on the second floor he had a good view of his nafta singer Plaza the large perk like area in the center of Kelton colleges campus three residence halls Pearsall Olmstead and Cola Han running north I kind of that maybe this is naive of me I thought that first paragraph was going to go into him explaining what was in the book that was frustrating him but instead now we're just getting like a mental map of the layout of the campus the administration building was at the northern ends the main Science Building Terrell Hall to the south the big burr memorial library was directly across from where Jake looked out the window knowing the premise of this book I assumed this whole layout is going to matter later when he's having to go building to building and save people so the window Jake here's a female call of distress so he goes outside to investigate it didn't take him long to get down the stairs a group of students was sitting in the lobby talking about something he heard the words microaggression and privilege and cisnormative Wow all three of those words just in that short time he was passing there must have been a very concise conversation Annie just be reasonable I'm not going to let go of you until you start thinking straight stop Cregg just stop the words gasped out as the woman clearly fought to hold back sobs I told you it was over Jake was still moving toward them but he stopped as he heard what the woman said a grimace tugged at his mouth lover's quarrel none of his business that was an old-fashioned attitude and he knew it but almost everything about him was old-fashioned including his dislike of a woman being mistreated I guess you could say he shares the sensibilities of a much older man of course if he did step in to help her more than likely she would stick up for her boyfriend and turn on him instead accusing him of perpetuating the patriarchy and the myth of women needing to be rescued but she literally does need to be rescued wait she just assumed that's what would happen it's almost as though he's the author of the book and has some incredible foresight as to a frustrating thing that's about to happen he started to turn away then Jake heard the crack of open hand on flesh and stopped in his tracks he swung around took several more steps until he could see the two of them fairly well she was petite and blond while the guy was good-sized with dark hair and a short beard wow it's like I'm there something was odd about the shape of his head and after a second Jake got it the guy's hair was long enough that he'd pulled it up into a bun on the top of his head full respect that Jake is so slow on the uptake that when he sees a man with a bun he thinks his head has an odd shape the guy started tugging on the woman who was actually crying now Jake said that's enough Cregg let her go this is none of your business man he paused are you one of the football players you're big enough but Olmsted's not the athletic dorm I like that this other man feels the need to comment on the protagonists bigness I'm football player and you need to let go of the lady you don't have to call me a lady Annie said just as Jake had expected she sounded halfway offended I'm trying to help you that's no excuse for perpetuating stereotypes and spreading toxic masculinity it's amazing how this crazy specific thing that sounds very unlikely that Jake predicted beat for beat played out exactly like that I'm not scared of you Cregg shouted I don't care how big you are why is he calling a big again I know Krav magas he had just started some sort of fancy martial arts move when Jake hit him with a left hook to the belly those fancy karate moves are no match for some old fashioned gut punch and Craig went down hard pounding his face against the concrete walk you killed him Annie screeched she came at him hissing and spitting all he tried to do was help this woman and now she wanted to claw his eyes out because he hit her boyfriend you fascist she screamed you will press her what is he pressing the right of men to hit their girlfriends Jake heard a sudden rush of footsteps behind him and turned to see several black clad figures charging him he couldn't make out their faces and when they yelled fascist fascist and the words were muffled he knew why they were wearing hoods over their heads wait why did it say he knew why like he had figured out something clever he just saw that they were wearing it with his eyeballs then they were on him swinging the bicycle chains with locks on them metal pipes and other objects turned into clubs and this peaceful night on the small elite college campus turned into a fight for his life I love this mystery gang of like ninjas that's popped out of the shadows why are they wielding bike chains and like bats and nunchucks is this like the Foot Clan so that's the end of chapter one and I have to say completely sold so far jake reached up closed his right hand around the pipe and wrenched it free of the attackers grip he twirled it jabbed the end into the kid's stomach and sent staggering backward a second later somebody landed on Jake's back and rapped wiry arms and legs around him I got him a female voice yelled kill the fascist down with oppressors kill him what are these characters meant to think was going on what's the misunderstanding Jake frowned as he saw that the commotion had attracted several dozen students his frown deepened as he realized they were cheering on the black cloud attackers wait a minute he shouted knowing he was wasting his time but too angry to care I didn't do anything wrong I was just trying to help a woman toxic toxic racist the black suits we're on their feet again and regrouping as they got ready to charge him Jake flashed back for an instant two things he had seen in the past men in black hoods spouting Arabic as they held a Western journalists and Saudis okay it's like it's memories of stuff on the news more black hooded figures forcing a scared child with a bomb strapped to him down a street while they threatened to kill his mother if he didn't blow up himself and some American soldiers are these memories that Jake has those same evil men and others just like them shooting at him and his buddies okay so he's flashing back to the war I don't know if all of those were specifically is the own memories or if the first two were just examples of things that reminded him of his real memories so what appears to have just happened is that Jake had a horrible flashback to some very violent and disturbing memories which caused him lingering trauma from his time in the war because of a thing that was happening currently which reminded him too strongly of it and I feel like there's a word for that drop them drop those weapons the shouted command came from behind him he turned saw the half-dozen uniformed campus cops converging on him Phelps deployed taser he heard a stun gun fire felt the fierce jab as the first set of needles pierced his shirt and lanced into his flesh to deliver their jolt of electricity good writing he staggered as the shock course threw him but he didn't go down I guess he's just too big dang it Jake what am I gonna do with you Frank mccrane leaned back in the chair behind his desk sighed and shook his head he was the chief of the campus police and clearly he didn't appreciate being called to his office late in the evening like this when he should have been home with his family so mcrainey is like a good old-fashioned guy he wants to just let Jake off the hook he's just kind of giving him a stern talking-to he understands it wasn't his fault most people here at Kelton didn't know who his grandfather was but mcrainey was a family friend and had known Cordell Gardner as a young man not super fair that he's off the hook because the guy knew his grandpa I thought it's just because he believed in his innocence but I was wrong why are you here Jake is it just because of your grandfather this is the question I have been wondering Jake hesitated so now Jake just starts telling us the reader that he has a bad relationship with his father and they don't talk anymore and doesn't answer the question Jake mcrainey prodded but Jake was lost in the past which is the author's way of telling us that we are about to enter an extended flashback sequence six months earlier Paul Cordell Gardiner tracked the clay pigeon with the shotgun leading it perfectly as he squeezed the trigger the pigeon exploded into small fragments as the buckshot hit it all right so now we're in a conversation about him going to college with his grandfather Cordell Gardiner who is basically Jake's father figure he and his grandfather were standing at the edge of a large field that Cordell garden are used for skeet shooting the roof of the old man's house which was big but somehow not ostentatious was visible over the trees behind them Gardner's estate sprawled over a lot of East Texas acres and included tennis courts stables and nine hole golf course even though Gardner didn't play tennis ride horses or have any use for golf sometimes his guested though and he'd been raised to be hospitable it's important that we know that Cordell is rich enough to have all these things but too masculine to engage with any of them he was a big old man although not as big as Jake's 6-4 and 250 pounds I'm so glad we get a running update on the relative bigness of these characters the shock of hair on his head was snow-white which made the deep permanent tan on his weathered face seemed even darker than it really was he had an air of vitality about him despite his age and seemed to be nowhere near dying this is a very complimentary description of an old man okay so the conversation was really long but basically the point is that Jake's grandfather encouraged him to go to college after he got back from serving in the military and his grandpa's like you're gonna have a great time you won't regret it but Jake had regretted it almost immediately his grandfather had said he would fit right in nothing could have been further from the truth just looking at some of the names of the courses listed in the catalog had him frowning and figuratively scratching his head the scratches that is an expression you don't have to tell me that it's figurative gender culture and US national identity feminist critique of Christianity social justice and American racism the psychological impacts of male microaggression countering war mongering and oppression in American culture Jake had never seen such a load of useless baloney in all his life where were the regular courses I imagine that they're on a different page Jake are you in like the Gender Studies section I'm just gonna go out on a limb and assume these are not gen ed courses Jake closed the catalogue he was grateful if he wouldn't have to mess with any of that sort of course since he was going for his master's degree in biology okay he found out different when he met with his faculty advisor kellton college requires a diverse course load even for specialized advanced degrees the professor said a brass nameplate on his desk read dr. Mattoon whoa the guy was as pale as anybody Jake had ever seen tall balding gawky with a receding chin he looks like a big white bird I feel very attacked by this description Jake couldn't help himself he said dr. matumbo the man sniffed I identify as african-american my ancestors were colonialists named Montalvo who lived for a time in French Equatorial Africa before immigrating to this country I simply adopted a more appropriate spelling to honor the unfortunate people they oppressed and Exploited how does that track okay so two things first why did Jake not look up the requirements for every student before deciding to go to this college and second I would like to point out that this scene is a good illustration of my general beef with this book not having people behave like people so if we can rewind for a second to the beginning of this scene Jake walked into this professor's office in office hours and said dr. matumbo and for some reason the professor responded by being like yes my name is dr. matumbo and here's why let me tell you this extended personal backstory and in fact for any normal human being if someone walks into your office during office hours and says your name in a questioning tone like dr. matumbo you would then go yes oh please have a seat you're just in time for office hours you wouldn't assume that they were asking you why your name is your name also Jake tells us that matoom-bomba Ghat all okay the baby of this chapter has just reminded me that all of that was part of a long flashback and he is still in McCrea knees office failing to answer the question sorry sir Jake said I guess I got a little distracted there so basically to answer the question Jake just reiterates everything we saw in the flashback with his grandfather - chief McRaney then chief McRaney commiserate it's about how he also hates all the students here and he tells Jake that he can go the night was still warm and pleasant as Jake walked along concrete paths under trees past stately old brick buildings when he was in a particularly dark shadow filled stretch of sidewalk two shapes stepped out in front of him and brought him to an abrupt stop some faint sounds from behind told him the jaws of the trap had just closed on that side as well hello fellas Jake said are you the campus Patrol come to see that I get back to my dorm safely Jake is not only big but sassy a muffled voice disguised even more by whispering said shut up which is not very intimidating that's right folks the masked goons are back there's another fight there is a lot of throat punching um the only difference this time being that Jake is trying to be quiet so he doesn't alert the campus police who he believes will blame him again and I guess given the way this universe has worked so far he's probably right on that count so Jake wins Jake walked off and left the man there sobbing he took deep breaths as he walks along the sidewalk in front of the library he worked his shoulders sore but good to go the damage he had taken in the fight was minimal he decided that thought was running through his mind when someone stepped out from behind one of the columns on the library porch and said I saw what you did back there she just stood there with her hands in the hip pockets of the jeans she wore and looked at him it was a casual stance but it might have been calculated to make her breasts stand out a little more prominently against the shirt she wore if that was the case it worked to the hair that tumbled around her shoulders shone reddish gold and the light Jake couldn't see her eyes but he was willing to bet they were brown a deep rich brown what does that mean why is he willing to bet that are you going to take out your phone and call the cops he asked would you try to stop me if I did she asked he shook his head for a long moment she regarded him in silence standing at the edge of the porch with six broad steps between her and Jake on the sidewalk then she said I'm not going to call the campus police I'm Jake rivers by the way I know who you are you're not exactly a run-of-the-mill kellton college student there are rumors among the faculty that you must be related to some big donor but nobody seems to know exactly who it is or if they do they're keeping it to themselves you're a professor criminal justice dr. Natalie Burke so since we heard about her breasts I assume that was flirting they talk of it more and then part ways and then we jump to the next morning when the president of the college has asked to see Jake as he walked toward the administration building the next morning he noticed when someone stepped up beside him hurrying to keep up with his long leg Strides his legs are as big as the rest of him you look different this morning dr. Natalie Burke said am I allowed to say you look nice J cast or is that a microaggression coming from someone as big as you I'm not sure a microaggression is possible J this is my favorite reading bit and it does not disappoint the trigger warning drinking game is every time Jake is big I just skipped like 20 pages the president is mad at Jake because the students he beat up are going to try to sue him for beating them up the president wants Jake to drop out or transfer but he refuses you're determined to remain enrolled here yes sir I am then please try not to cause any more trouble I never set out to cause it Jake said but I'm not going to run away from it either good lord you sound like John Wayne Jake grinned and said I'll take that as a compliment as he opened the office door and went out why you sound like a character from some kind of cowboy novel chapter 10 is from the perspective of our super villain Matthias Foster is it Mattias Matthias I think people say Matthias and I think maybe that wasn't originally how it was pronounced but that's just one of the pronunciations now this chapter is basically just him surveying the school and acting evil and alluding to his dark plans I'm just gonna skip all of it the only thing really of note is that his accomplices have hilariously basic names we have Jimmy Hank Carlos Ben and Lucy back at Jakes dorm there is a knock at the door and it's big grandpa Cordell which is extremely weird I don't know why he came to Jake's dorm on the college campus instead of just like calling him basically he is here to explain that he paid off the families of all the students who wanted to sue to make it disappear for Jake so there's nothing more to worry about he encourages Jake to stay in school and then he leaves another knock sounded on the door Jake pushed his chair back stood up and stepped across the room to open it he expected to see his grandfather standing there again and said changed your mind about getting that beer I actually I didn't because nobody's asked me to go get a beer dr. Nathalie Burke said but now that you mention it that sounds like an excellent idea Jake agrees to this date and then this very strange internal monologue happens let me get my jacket as a private institution Kelson college had the right under the law to prohibit carrying weapons of all kinds with an inside the waistband holster and the comfortably fitting shorts he wore nobody had to know he was armed unless it was necessary he also had several small but deadly combat knives he carried on occasion Jake had a couple of guns in his dorm room they weren't supposed to be there but he wanted to have them handy anyway he didn't try to take one of them with him tonight okay I would hope not I would just assume that most women on a date with a man would be alarmed to find out that this much of his mental real estate was taken up by him wishing he was carrying a gun let's get into the date small talk which is certainly not used for more tiresome exposition tell me about your parents and your brothers and sisters Natalie asks which is about the most inhuman way you can phrase that question Jake says he's an only child his mom's still alive he's not in contact with his dad but then my mother divorced him and took back her maiden name I decided to follow her example I had lost all respect for my father and I didn't want to be carrying around his name so I got it legally changed and took the name of my maternal grandfather instead Big Joe rivers we have another big man bigness runs in this family any other relatives my mother had two brothers but they're both dead one went nuts and died in an asylum I know I'm an insensitive lout but at least I didn't call it a loony bin what my other uncle was killed in an explosion this is peak first date conversation the blast blew up him and his wife I was too little to know anything about it at the time but later on I heard rumors that it and for the record he follows up this info-dump with no questions about Natalie's family whatsoever they split an order of potato skins to go along with the beers they drank three for Jake and two for Natalie it's probably cuz he's bigger so I'm skinny most of this but this line is funny a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing Jake quoted that's kind of the way I look at social media most of the time they bond some about how the school is full of snowflakes who they hate it's kind of the only thing they have in common and it's most of what they talk about no matter who gets offended over what they pitch a hissy fit and demand safe spaces Jake smiled you know who Audie Murphy was the names vaguely familiar Natalie said with a puzzled frown but I can't place it firm by from here in Texas he went off to fight in World War two and wound up as the most decorated soldier in the history of the country after the war he became an actor mostly in western movies a better actor generally than most people give him credit for this sounds like a very personal rant coming from an old man who's overly invested in the career of Audie Murphy when Audie Murphy was 19 years old like a lot of these precious little snowflakes his safe space was behind a 50 caliber machine gun one that critique could have happened without mentioning Audie Murphy at all and outing yourself as an old man trying to write a book with a young protagonist - howdy Murphy had crippling PTSD he suffered for much of his young life from stress headaches vomiting and nightmares I guess it's literally and depressingly true to say that his safe space was behind a gun because he actually felt unsafe for many years falling asleep without keeping a gun under his pillow which was not included in his biography as a cool triumphant thing during one particularly bad episode he actually pulled a gun on his wife and almost killed her he spent the bulk of his later life advocating for PTSD research and more sensitivity toward how soldiers are emotionally affected by being in wars and dealt his own emotional baggage by writing poetry he was probably a poor example for Jake to try to draw upon for the point he was trying to make anyway let's get back to the date exactly how old are you Jake 24 he said then took another pull of the beer but my grandfather claims I have an old soul my grandfather claims I have the soul of an old novelist you're an interesting person Jake rivers I'm not sure what to make of you and mysteries have always intrigued me you're full of contradictions you're a warrior but you're also a philosopher you quote Shakespeare you're young but you look down on people your age and venerate soldiers from a war that was fought three generations ago you're quiet spoken and gentle and yet you've been one of those rough men ready to do violence on other people's behalf when you need to be you still are a rough man girls always say stuff like this on first dates she tipped her head back and despite the poor light he had no trouble letting instinct guide him so that his lips found hers she rested the finger tips of her left hand on his chest and slipped her right arm around his waist it was a good kiss with just enough heat and urgency that they both tightened the embrace but with the natural restraint of a first kiss it definitely held the potential for more Jake thought it was a good assessment of a kiss that was when the rush of footsteps came from the darkness around them and Jake knew that hell was about to break loose yet again Natalie let out a startled Oh as Jake gave her a push that sent her staggering back away from him I would love if when he shoved Natalie she now called him a fascist he didn't see or hear any attackers coming from that direction so his instincts told him that was the safest place for her so I guess he could say that she needed a safe space those black hooded and Tifa fanatics they were after him again even though he had put the last four in the hospital with the heel of his hand under the man's chin he shoved up as hard as he could the man had to let go of him and jerk away or else Jake might well have broken his neck when that thrust I'm pretty confident that every fight thus far has mentioned Jake having to be careful not to break X so it's good of him to be conscientious I guess so there's another punching and kicking fight some more mentions of almost snaps next just to recap this is our third fight of the book fortunately the cop who intercepts them this time is the good old man chief McCraney so he's not going to get Jake in trouble mccreaney blue out of breath I know you Jake he said you play by your own rules and figure you can take care of yourself and ninety-nine percent of the time you're right but getting on the wrong side of 99.9% of the student body and about that many of the faculty the way you have your booking heavy odds messing around with a professor is just going to make it worse for you I appreciate that twice in the same evening jake has had near strangers offer monologues about how cool he is next day Jake is going to class you're going to be shocked to learn that another fight is about to happen I told you to watch where are you going it's a type of he was about Jake's age maybe a little younger wearing a black t-shirt with hash tag resist and hash tag fascism printed across the chest if I may give this kid some constructive criticism if you really don't want to separate fascism into its own hash tag like that it might give the wrong message the man who had been mouthing off at him was about to hit him Jake reached up his reaction was almost too fast for the eye to follow the guy's right fist smacked into the palm of Jake's left hand the man grunted as his fists forward motion was stopped instantly and utterly a little off-balance because of that he'd lean toward Jake please can we appreciate how anime that mental images of like you see the motion lines of the fists coming forward and then Jake's hand comes up from off-screen to catch it in place and maybe there's a shot of the other guy going where he's like not understanding what's happening and then it does the thing where they're like diagonal slices and of characters having reactions to what's happening so Jake successfully defends himself but the students are all gathered around like he's the bad guy again because that has to have been every fight scene and then afterward a black kid named Pierce runs up and is like hey man I recorded it all on my phone and I can send it to you if you need to prove that you're innocent I appreciate the gesture Pierce the man introduced himself freely Jake said so Pierce was doing something nice for Jake and then Jake decided to make fun of how his name didn't sound like a black name don't get racist on me when I'm trying to do you a favor man so in spite of that Pierce does promised to send Jake the footage after class Jake and Natalie go on another date where they drive around in his pickup truck and then walk around a state park then she invites him on a study date at the library the next day which is a little weird because that's her workplace I don't know just strange cut to Matthias foster the next morning he kills two groundskeepers hides their bodies and then waits for the other three groundskeepers to arrive at which point he holds them at gunpoint and demands that they give him their coveralls so usually in a movie when a character needs to be undercover on very short notice they will end up tying someone up in a supply closet and taking their clothes however if they have advance notice and this is like a long con and the workman's outfits are just standard coveralls and not some kind of unique uniform you can just order coveralls online like you can go on Amazon I would imagine that the average student wouldn't even know what kind of coveralls to look for they would just see a man in coveralls and be like he must work here sounds legit now we get some Pierce POV good old Pierce who we just met Pierce saw the other four members of his political science study group in the area where they usually gathered Fareed was a wiry young man who shaved his head but kept a layer of dark beard stubble on his face you don't have to say beard stubble if it's on his face we know it's from a beard chunky purple haired Margery Dorne Jeni Trumbull had been a cheerleader in high school but a couple of years at Kelton had changed her now she wore her blonde hair in dreadlocks seldom washed it and wouldn't be caught dead and make Clerk Mitchell was short pudgy round-faced and wore glasses the stereotypical nerd Clerk Mitchell is a funny name and it's not the first funny name and for the record I'm keeping a post-it of all of the generic man names in this book because they're great the system keeps us in its iron grip Farid said holding up a hand and clenching it into a fist to demonstrate but one day all the oppressed people of the world will join together and explode he opened his fist emphatically then there will come a reckoning for the sinful Western society and all its ills explode is a questionable choice of words we have some more McCraney Jake so much of this book is filler like we've had for fights and like five point of views and we haven't even gotten to the story we cut back to Jake he's back at the president's office nothing important back to Matthias nothing important and more coverall stuff back to McCraney he checks on the maintenance shed and gets stabbed by the bad guys um but he lives just long enough to radio for help and now I think the book is actually going to begin and we're only at over the halfway point were you waiting right here for me to show up Jake asked Natalie as he stepped off the escalator at the bottom she laughed get over yourself big man the Jake was tall enough he could see over some of the low sets of shelves dividing that part of the library's lower floor he spotted a familiar face and recognized the kid who had given him the video Pierce Connors Pierce was sitting with a group of students one of whom was a young middle-eastern guy Jake knew a lot of people would say it was racist of him but whenever he saw somebody like that he always felt himself tense up inside for a second that sounds pretty bad Mathias Foster came out of the men's room on the first floor of the administration building in jeans a pullover shirt and a light jacket instead of the groundskeepers coveralls he had been wearing earlier in his pose as Rick Overman the civilian clothes had been in a taped up cardboard curtain here carries into the building as if he were delivering something why didn't he just stay in the coveralls I don't understand this part of the scheme he held the phone in his left hand and reached behind him under his jacket with the right as he stepped off the escalator at the bottom he pulled the Glock free pointed it at the ceiling and triggered two shots the gun Thunder was deafening in this confined space but Foster had earplugs in to protect his hearing with their decibel activated circuitry everyone do as you're told he shouted loud enough for his voice to carry across the entire lower floor otherwise we're all going to die what the we was a strange choice but he got caught up in the moment and you know sometimes you trip over your words here's Conners bolted to his feet when he heard the shots Fareed was on his feet too looking around frantically like Pierce was in the past he had talked about how he wished he could strike back at the Great Satan America for the glory of Islam and the Prophet but right now he just looked scared I'm sorry he WA gunman was white fairly young and average looking nothing about him shouted mass shooter actually um now I think he pretty much just describes a lot of mass shooters old habits died hard when Jake heard the shots his first instinct was to hunt cover the second to return fire but he didn't have anything to shoot back with and in that split second when his brain began to process what was going on he realized that he was more concerned with Natalie safety than with his own he lunged across the table slid on the papers knocked books and laptops aside and grabbed her the impact toppled her chair over she cried out in surprise Jake twisted as they went down so that he hit the floor first and she landed on top of him instead of the other way around his weight falling on her might have seriously injured her I mean he is really big I like how his action hero slide across the table was a lot more in danger of calling attention to them than if he had simply ducked under the table grabbed her and pulled her down after him quiet down the gunman yelled everybody just shut up somebody set an obscenity over and over again terrified whisper there's so much violence in this book but they try not to use any profanity this is a family book I'm sure you're all wondering what it is we want the gunman went on it's really very simple the only way anyone leaves this campus today without more bloodshed is if one hundred million dollars is transferred into an offshore bank account the number of which I'll provide to the authorities in due time most of the families you come from are one percenters old money dirty money money made on the backs of the common people wrung out of them along with their sweat and blood seriously are you going to try to tell me that your parents can't just sit down and write a check for that much and never miss it you know I'm right he knows just sounds like a second-rate comedian trying to whip up the crowd the guy might be a killer but what he said was true Jake thought a semesters tuition housing and other expenses could easily add up to that much or more a lot of parents paid it again and again so their darling little snowflakes could get degrees in intersectional feminism or gender studies I mean Jake's here too entirely because of the goodwill of his rich grandfather who also paid off a bunch of families of the kids he beat up his grandfather makes a lot of problems go away with his money so this is a bold thing for Jake to think oh my god I actually thought I might not be able to read this page for a second because it's printed on so crooked I thought that the words had been cut off by the edge of the page but no it looks like everything is technically there so then Mathias says that they've buried bombs all over the campus and if they call it in with a detonator everything is gonna go up and that's why they had the coveralls so they could dig without being detected chapter 7 dr. Alfred mom Tom bolt can I just call him a tomb beau it's easier to say he pressed his back against the wall in the narrow gap between two sets of shelves and tried to will his heart to stop beating so hard the man with the gun was prowling around the special science collection on the third floor of the library the tomb boat had been in here by himself when chaos erupted below as he stood up from the table where he had been working on his laptop he'd heard quick footsteps in the hallway outside Mattoon beau knew from that moment that the man was there to kill him not him specifically maybe but anyone he found here fortunately matoom both sneaks into a storage closet where he's able to stack some boxes and push up a ceiling tile and get himself into the vents or at least the the gap under the ceiling tiles so he's disguised for now he thought about his ancestors then ever since he had been old enough to understand the evils of imperialism he had been ashamed of the rule some of his forebears have played in colonizing Africa they had been brutal exploiters and killers but if one of them had been able to come down through the mists of time and stand between matumbo and that gunman right now he would have welcomed the old reprobate with open arms I can't even begin to break down this thought process I would imagine that no matter what life-threatening situation I found myself in I wouldn't suddenly start to think gosh I would even accept the help of the Zodiac killer right now why did I always hate the Zodiac killer you know I always had really unkind thoughts about the Zodiac killer but if they could somehow magically appear right here and now and decide to save me from the bad thing that was happening well then I would just feel like an idiot for not liking them back to Jake he is evaluating his chances of stopping this if Jake was going to succeed in stopping this somehow without a great loss of life he would need to be very careful for read then tries to join the gunman and Pierce gets mad at Farid which for some reason causes the whole study group to turn against Pierce on the other side of the table and underneath it Jenny Clarke and Marjorie were looking at them Marjorie stared at Pierce and said Uncle Tom how do you even know about that Pierce asked about Uncle Tom I've studied history evidently that's more than you can say and then they just explained to him what Uncle Tom means I don't understand here's things about how his only hope now is Jake rivers the big man himself we get more McCraney paramedics are trying to take chief mcrainey away for treatment but he insists on just getting a band-aid and staying to help Jake had no eye how many other buildings had been targeted or how many members of the gang had been assigned to each building how many total were on campus forty fifty if somebody on the outside was smart enough they might think of shutting down all the cell towers around campus they might even be able to block walkie talkie signals that would leave the gunmen unable to communicate from building to building please tell me that means that Jake will have to go from building to building taking out the enemies from each one in an isolated pod like some kind of video game level and maybe there's like one big boss in each building that has like a flamethrower or something or it's just a big man comparable to Jake there is so much perspective hopping basically nothing happened and we're back to McCraney mcrainey had taken only a couple of steps when a dark-colored sedan joined the other vehicles parked in the street and a woman in a midnight blue dress got out her long brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail that hung half way down her back she was about forty years old mcrainey estimated and striking her appearance without being classically beautiful that's good my first question was if she was hot I'm Teresa Vega from Homeland Security and you are Frank McCraney chief of the campus police she turned back to Graham and asked what do we have here I'm sure you've seen the video that was streamed out of the library of course the man's name is Matthias Foster he was a student here several years ago wait just a minute mccreaney said you know the identity of the guy who's behind this and you didn't tell me me chief mcrainey if there was any glory attached to a case the feds wanted it to land at their feet and many of them genuinely regarded local cops as being incompetent at best corrupt and stupid at worst McCraney hadn't really detected that sort of arrogance from Walt Graham so far but it fairly used from Teresa Vega okay let's place bets now is they got an enemy or is she a love interest who's going to be won over by MacRay nice folksy skills foster was enrolled here for three semesters I doubt if you remember him he didn't get into any trouble while he was here as far as we've been able to uncover foster was what used to be called a radical went to some protests and helped organize a few of them post a lot of hashtag resist on social media he strayed close to advocating the violent overthrow of the government but never was blamed enough to draw any real attention at least from us I like that this kid was both lazy a fair enough about overthrowing the government to be low on their radar but known enough that they know exactly who he is from seeing his face in one video mccreaney said you can reach all these buildings without too much trouble they weren't designed for defense after all and I doubt if there are enough terrorists to cover every point of entry but if foster can set off bombs all over the campus with one push of a button a direct assault probably isn't a very good idea if only there was some kind of action here on the inside who could move building to building punching all the bad guys like some kind of video games alright let's move the tall black man with a gun said as he approached Jake and Natalie where they still lay on the floor where are we going Jake asked as he pushed himself up Disney World ayoh everybody looked scared as the three gunmen who had been positioned around the edges of the room began hurting the hostages toward the center of the lower level jake stopped short and said in a loud voice wait just a minute they're bluffing you're not crazy enough to blow yourself up along with everybody else Jake said I can tell that by looking at you you're no martyr you don't believe there are 99 virgins waiting in heaven for you the middle-eastern looking guy standing with Pierce glared at Jake when he said that Jake ignored him oh yeah he ignored and halts would he respond like turn to him and say stop glaring at me keep talking the leader said you're smart I want to hear your thoughts even he's complimenting Jake do you honestly believe we didn't plant bombs all over this campus is that what you mean by bluffing that's right Jake said you just want everybody to believe you did so they'll be too scared to make a move against you so I won't push a button on this phone and send out the detonation a signal won't do any good if you do find now all the cell phone towers in the area have been taken offline the leader smiling with a self-satisfaction that Jake found worrisome turned his phone so he could look at its display and said well what do you know no service just like you predicted he put the phone back in his shirt pocket and reached for his pants pocket instead it's a good thing that triggers on those bombs are linked to satphones instead as Jake tensed the leader thumbed numbers into the satellite phone held it to his ear and smiled the boon was muffled by distance and building walls but it was clearly an explosion okay so obviously what's happened is that the leader fell for a childishly stupid scheme on Jake's part to get him to reveal the appearance and location of the detonator so that Jake can get it from him in a future scene and he only had to carelessly gamble with the lives of everybody near the first bomb to do it can I also point out how easily that could have gone horribly wrong like what if he did check his phone and the bombs had been on a cellphone signal and he sees that his phone has been blocked and panics you really want this band of crazed maniacs with weapons pointed at you and your classmates to panic because they've lost control the leader had stopped forward gesturing with the gun in his hand until he was only about 10 feet from Jake and that was too close cops had what was called the 21 foot rule that was close enough that in many cases the officer was unable to draw a Mac yur Utley and discharged his sidearm before the attacker had reached him the leaders pistol wasn't holstered but he had flung his arms out while he was yelling so the Glock wasn't pointed at Jake Jake lunged forward he was considerably bigger and heavier than the leader drink for big so the impact drove the man off his feet and toppled him over backward Jake was vaguely aware that a lot of shouting was going on around him but no guns had gone off yet he heard one man yell for somebody to stay back and another cried don't shoot hold your fire that was what he wanted to hear they weren't going to blaze away at him for fear of hitting their boss if he could just get that gun loose and hold it to the guy's head but can he very next sentence the leaders grip slipped again and this time Jake was able to rip the gun away from him okay he swung the man in front of him and rammed the pistols muzzle against his head just above the right ear he caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of his left eye and glanced in the direction to see that Natalie had moved up beside him Natalie get back he snapped find some cover and get down he turned swiftly hauling the stunned leader around with him so the man's body was between him and the other gunman would they drop their Bin's or what they shoot through the man who had planned this operation and brought them here today Jake never had a chance to find out what the other gunmen would have done because at that moment he felt something hard and round press against the left side of his body he recognized it as a gun barrel and as he looked over shock went through him to his core Natalie had crowded close beside him with an intense expression on her face the likes of which he had never seen before stop it Jake she said let him go and drop that gun I don't want to kill you the leader was regaining his senses after that punch from Jake he turned his head enough so that Jake could see the triumphant grin on his face as he said good work Lucy whoa I love this twist it's great so she's already a professor here what kind of long con is this was her being suspiciously too perfect for Jake a lie all along and it was actually like well foreshadowed actually why would it be unless this gang was already aware of this random man named Jake and needed to remove him as a threat like why they wouldn't target him on purpose it must just be a very odd coincidence and in that case why is Lucy out here trying to get dates right before this operation why did she invite him to this library date at the time she knew this would happen instead of keeping him away all along she had been deceiving him Jake thought everything that had been between them was a lie it's been like three days everything just tell me one thing are you really Natalie Burke or is your name Lucy I'm dr. Natalie Burke she said and I really am a professor of criminal justice lucy is just Foster said Lucy he's just weak call her she'll kill you if you don't do what she says rivers you know who I am Jake graded oh man of course we've been worried about you all along my man why do you think we kept testing you to find out how dangerous you really are what the black hooded figures hadn't been an Tifa at all they had been part of foster cell or gang or whatever you wanted to call it well it's crazy they were so on suspicious and that's why we decided it would be a good idea to get somebody close to you foster went on in his smug mocking tone our little Lucy did a good job didn't she you never suspected that she was one of us why is Jake so important is it okay it's totally gonna come back to his suspiciously cool grandfather we're gonna find out that guy was like a special agent for the FBI or something and and and that's genetic I don't know also I reiterate that if they wanted him to not be a threat Natalie should have tried to keep him off campus she should have invited him for a date at like the Arby's down the street or something Jake's gays cut over to Natalie again she was pale and clearly upset but the line of her job was resolute okay so she fell for him despite herself this is the best twist this novel really delivers Natalie said go ahead and put that gun on the floor Jake he felt a bitter hollowness inside him at her betrayal but one thing he had learned in combat was that emotions had no effect on fact no sooner had he released his hold on Foster's neck than all the lights in the Burma Morial library went out okay we cut back to a chief McCraney interlude he and the government agents are responsible for trying to cut all the power to campus and they literally do this by calling the power company and then the whole phone conversation is written out of them negotiating with the guy over the other end of the phone about the best way to shut off the power to the campus it's a very action-packed chapter for a couple of seconds everyone down there including Jake couldn't see much of anything he twisted sharply and lashed out his left arm his forearm struck Natalie's arm and knocked it to the side Jake planted his hand against her shoulder and gave her a hard shove that sent her flying backward shots roared muzzle flames split the bloom shrieks of pain and fear ripped the air somewhere foster shouted kill rivers kill him instinct sent Jake diving to the floor another lunge carried him into the stacks those rows and rows of shelves full of old volumes and bound periodicals I assume we're about to see the triumphant return of dr. matumbo okay so it's just a lot of Jake running Jake - Jake running calculations on how many assailants there were Jake running again this is the kind of minutia and being treated to normally an exit light burned over the heavy steel door with its push bar since the power was out that light was dark now but Jake was able to spot the door anyway the stairwell was about 20 feet to his left beyond a pair of water fountains the doors to the men's and women's restrooms we're back to his right I am literally in shock that they didn't use this opportunity for them to say that the school has gender-neutral bathrooms and that Jake doesn't like it one of fosters men emerged from an aisle beyond the metal door Jake slowed down just long enough to grab a heavy book from the end of the shelf he was passing the book struck the man's gun hand and knocked it aside just as he pulled the trigger Jake's right fist rocketed up and crashed into the man's jaw with enough force to slough his head far around to the side he went limp did Jake finally not hold back and snap a neck with his punches Jake plucked the dead man's gun from nerveless fingers thrust his arm under the man's arm and triggered twice as the pistol Jake had just liberated belched fired three times the trio of swift shots spun the second gunman off his feet his gun flew out of his hand I seen this second gun will later be found and used by dr. matumbo once he comes out or Pierce could be pierced - Jake hesitated for a moment uncertain whether to try leaving the stairwell here there was at least a chance he'd be able to fight his way past fosters men and reach the doors before they could stop him then he would be out but he wasn't sure he wanted to be out once he left the library he wouldn't be able to do anything to stop Foster's plan all the innocent people in here would be left to that madman's mercy it's almost like they should have gotten Lucy to keep him away from the library a short time earlier he would have included Natalie with those innocent people he thought bitterly now that he knew the truth about her he felt like he got to hate her and believed that whatever happened to her she had it coming somehow he just couldn't do that okay she's definitely gonna be redeemed taking foster down from the inside was still the best chance to minimize loss of life Jake decided he started up the stairs to the second floor yeah but soon bo returns so matumbo is still crawling through the ceiling when he sneezes he started crawling forward along the plank again when without warning he sneezed the dust headon hailed a few minutes earlier had caused that reaction he knew but knowing the cause didn't make things any better his nose which was on the prominent side made sure that the noise it produced was loud and resonant what kind of sentence was that so matumbo falls out of the ceiling and the terrorist tried to kill him but jake dashes into the rescue Jake hadn't known what to expect when he stepped through the door but the sight of dr. matoom bow while two of fosters men tried to kill him wasn't it he was pretty sure of that Jake saves them nothing much of note happens except that professor Mutumbo says that madman is going to blow us all to kingdom come you know like people say then Jake and matoom boats tears and save some captive librarians Jake hands mattoon bone of his extra guns doc Jake said to matumbo I'm counting on you to keep these folks safe what are you going to do the professor asked Jake smiled grimly still rats to clean out of this nest he said I feel like that's the third consecutive chapter that's ended on an action one-liner and you don't unforce Connors returns when the lights went out the first instinct pierced Connors felt was to stay right where he was but then something began nagging at him and it wouldn't let go all too often he had listened to his fellow progressives complain about a situation then conclude by saying somebody needs to do something Pierce believed in government and the power it could and should wield but that didn't mean individuals shouldn't do their part as well too many on his side were all talk no action I think being an unarmed student hostage is a poor example of this idea with that thought prodding him he started to crawl away from the other members of his study group this may be our only chance to get away he looked over at Jenny and Clark come on you guys Jenny shook her head in wordless terror we're not going anywhere man we're gonna stay right here and not get shot stay right here and die Pierce thought it's kind of a nun charitable thought to have about your classmates who might actually die a voice behind him suddenly cut through his thoughts by shouting stop him he's trying to get away he surprised froze Pierce for a second he had hoped all the gunmen were distracted enough they wouldn't notice him crawling toward the stacks evidently was the case because he recognized the voice of the man who had called out the warning Moammar Farid ho come on really this Middle Eastern guy is just blatantly evil and wants everyone to die or sorry maybe he's just a traitorous coward it's kind of hard to tell at this point he just gets up and tries to run away and Farid literally jumps to his feet and tries to tackle him this is very extra furry and Pierce does get away and he runs to the stairs and decides to try to get up to wherever Jake is because Jake will keep him safe he is a very big man once they're all reunited they regroup Jake basically decides to leave Pierce with matumbo and the other rescued hostages fate had given him some strange allies Jake thought a young black liberal and a middle-aged snowflake professor but he supposed Pierce and mattoon Bo were better than nothing maybe make up your mind chapter 37 things were going wrong but Mathias Foster had always known there was a good chance that would happen looking back on it now he knew he should have had Lucy Natalie there was no need for code names now kill Jake rivers during one of the many times when she said sorry wait so even he's calling her Natalie now like was there any point to her being named Lucy except for in that one scene where it was him and his accomplices they had to call her Lucy so we wouldn't know so he was only calling her Lucy for the benefit of an omniscient narrator who might accidentally spill the beans too soon anyway he's bitterly thinking that he should have had her kill Jake rivers instead of just flirting with him and it's like yeah you should have foster had been confident that he and his men could handle rivers though and besides he was beginning to think that maybe he couldn't depend on Natalie as much as he had believed he could okay because she's gonna be redeemed she is in love with Jake back to Jake he's telling Pierce about the plan to leave him behind I need somebody I can trust to leave here and look after these people you trust me we don't agree on much of anything Jake you talking about politics Jake waived his free hand dismissively you've heard the old saying about how there are no atheists in foxholes what's a foxhole Pierce asks with a puzzled frown kids these days thought ignoring for the moment the fact that he was only three or four years older than Pierce I guess he could say he's a suspiciously old soul so can I just say that so far my vision of the video game inspired building to building format has not happened and instead it's just been Jake going from floor to floor like it's a vertical video game it would have been cooler if it was different buildings because they need to have different things instead of just bookshelves I'm just saying so now we're subjected to a lot of what I'm going to affectionately call boring nonsense I mean it's what we've had the whole book where it's just perspective to perspective but every time you see a character you're only seeing like 30 seconds more of action so it's kind of painstaking so we get Jake throat punching henchman on his way down bad guy fretting over Jake posing a threat the captives on the top floor thinking about how they hope that Jake is going to save them and McRaney and the feds talking about how they want to help oh and McCraney from outside meets a new character who has named dog and he's like a cool extreme mysterious super soldier and his like catchphrases just dog and every time a character interacts with him they go just dog and he goes just dogs so now we're seeing the perspective of some of the bad guys when a mysterious old man gets into the building and starts fighting them it's obviously dog because they just set him up they couldn't understand how the old man had even managed to get in here let alone to kill Carlos and the other three in less time than it took to talk about it so they were scared and that prompted each of them to grab one of the prisoners for use as a human shield the one holding on to a terrified young woman pointed the weapon over her shoulder and yelled drop that gun the old man fired a single shot that sizzled past the hostages right here and into the open mouths of the gunman hanging on to her the bullet shattered the man's spine and dropped him so fast he never had a chance to pull the trigger on his own gun so that's dog the maintenance man quickly unlocked the door and flung it open he looks back at the stranger and asked who the hell are you anyway just call me dog the man said the feds catch up to the maintenance workers who have just been rescued and ask them what happened did he tell you his name Vega asked exasperation crept into her voice that's another funny thing the maidens man replied I asked him about that he said to call him dog dog Vega repeated with a disgusted snort that's all just dog just dog Jake is still with the hostages still regrouping upstairs some of you guys gather up guns and ammunition from the men I killed nobody moved to accomplish that grisly chore Jake glared at them and managed to hold in the caustic comments he wanted to make about snowflakes and pajama boys let her put job I have never heard pajama boys in my entire life is pajama boys a thing I don't know if I want you guys to explain pajama boys or if the mystery is charming he made the turn at the landing between the second and third floors but froze as he heard a sharply and drawn breath in front of and slightly below him someone was coming up the stairs toward him Jake a familiar voice said Jake is that you I don't want to do this anymore it was all a terrible mistake and I'm so sorry a pleading note entered Natalie's voice please Jake I'm putting my life in your hands Natalie he said he couldn't hold it back her name had formed on his lips before he could stop it muzzle flame ripped through the gloom in the stairwell the gunshot crashed against his ears I knew it was a trap but also like that's kind of cool go go Natalie or Lucy or whoever you are Jake triggered three swift shots before he realized something was wrong as he heard a soft cry he realized what it was the shot fired at him had come from lower down the steps than Natalie and had been when she was talking to him that meant someone else had fired it okay never mind the shot fired at him hadn't struck him and he hadn't heard the slug hit the wall or ricochet off anything a cold ball formed in the pit of his stomach as he realized where it might have gone okay so this idiot second gunman instead of taking advantage of Natalie calling after Jake to draw him out just shot her by mistake Jake immediately kills the gunman so the only point of this scene was for Natalie to show up and get shot taking the stairs two at a time Jake went down until he came to Natalie's crumpled shape a part of him still didn't want to trust her a rattlesnake could still sink its fangs and you even after that scaly son a gun was dead you know like guys in their 20s say Jake lifted her held her against him and explored her body for wounds his big hand his big hand found the wet sticky spot in her back a little below her right shoulder hey Jake are you sure that's the recommended medical treatment for someone who's just been shot to like pick them up and roughly hoist their body around in various directions to look at it the wound might not be a fatal one not only needed medical attention though and pretty quickly he gathered her in his arms and stood up as he started back up the stairs she stirred slightly against him and murmured Jake yeah I've got you he said you're gonna be okay Natalie Lucy whatever not Lucy that was Mathias his idea what his idea he only called her that like two times guess he didn't really trust me after all I told him I'd come after you kill you but I was lying to him I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am about lying to you but not all of it was a lie for the record there were more Lipsey's than I even put in that sentence it was constant also I guess her heart was in the right place but this clearly wasn't the right time to come running up the staircase yelling apologies when either of them could have been shot by either side just then dogs voice comes over the lead guys walkie-talkie and threatens him and says that they're killing all his men and he's losing control remember that thing I said about not wanting the madmen who has hostages to panic so Mathias panics and starts detonating bombs in all of the various buildings so good job guys okay when Mathias picks up the radio he says rivers is that you and the guy on the radio says not exactly and I just realized the twist is obviously that dog is Jake's grandpa and that's why Jake was important and that's why they said his grandpa is like a cool veeraiah old man so I figured that foster took a deep breath and looked around studying the frightened faces of the hostages he had only two men besides himself left on this level and he'd had to pull one of them down from the first floor those weren't good odds if the hostages ever did sited to rush them it wouldn't end well for foster and his allies fortunately the chances of that happening were insignificant in his opinion these were college students and staff after all they had been thoroughly indoctrinated in the same sort of progressive claptrap that he had once believed himself they considered themselves superior the elite who were too smart to woke to ever embrace violence escaping violent kidnappers is very on whoa one of the campus cops named Cal Granderson who previously has not agreed with Jake's politics gets into the building and starts throwing heroic punches he almost dies and then Jake saves him by throwing some of his own punches and then a pink-haired hostage girl who Jake just saved scolds him for having a gun in a safe space back to the feds and McCraney agent Vega is asking more people about Dawg and saying his name is just dog and they're saying yes his name is chest dog when does this book end so Jake is working with the campus cop Cal Granderson he did get mentioned a few times before I just I didn't know what to leave in I don't know in the moment what is important because there's so much in this book so anyway Cal makes a heroic sacrifice he's already badly wounded so he decides he's going to ride the elevator down to the ground floor as the distraction and get shot at by all the bad guys so that Jake can sneak in down the stairwell you'll run right into a swarm of bullets if you do that Jake protested won't matter Bloods already leaking into my lungs and guts I won't make it but I can distract him so thanks to Cal's distraction Jake gets the jump on fosters men I'm so excited this book it's so close to being done detonators right here in my hand Jake Foster said it won't be long now before the big body count will belong to me do you think the big body count refers to killing only Jake so it's a body count of one but it's a really big body Jake froze where he was don't do it Foster that brought another laugh from the terrorist or madman pretty much the same thing don't try to talk me into surrender I'll never be taken alive victory or death if you don't want to be taken alive forget about blowing anything up put that detonator aside step out and face me just the two of us foster laughed head to head mano-a-mano just like the showdown in every bad book ever written ho this is getting meta so that you'll have the chance to deliver some classic line like yippee-ki-yay screw it Jake muttered Jake tackled him and they both crashed to the floor the little box slipped from Foster's fingers and bounced and slid away he tried to scramble after it but Jake grabbed him and swung him to the side crashing him into the shelves foster kicked at him that rocked Jake's head back and made the world go black for an instant I love how despite how many weapons have been exchanged between various parties everything this book comes down to punching and kicking Jake was extremely fast especially for such a big man Foster leaped to his feet and clawed at the pistol he had stuck behind his belt earlier Jake's vision cleared enough for him to see that he reached for the gun at the small of his back drawing faster than he ever had the shots crashed together Jake felt the impact against his chest and went over backward he fell forward and the blood began to form a slowly spreading pool under him Jake laid there mostly numb he was only vaguely aware of the tactically armored heavily armed figures that began to swarm around him a few moments later okay so Jake did it and now the feds are here after everything ended - to take him to the hospital the death toll of innocence that day at Kelton college was 16 it could have been much higher easily could have been 23 terrorists were killed five were taken into custody including dr. Natalie Burke who is expected to recover under heavy guard of course counselors provided by the college we're overworked as they tried to help the students deal with the trauma they had gone through this had been a macro aggression and some of those already easily triggered snowflakes would never get over it yeah only a pampered fragile child will be traumatized by being held at gunpoint by crazed criminals and thinking you're going to die and also watching the brutal murder of your peers like come on Jon stones here than this actually I don't know that you are here's Conners remained enrolled but he told the other members of his study group that he thought he would be studying on his own from now on so are he and Farid not going to have like a serious conversation about what happened when he tried to sell him out to the kidnappers I guess that I guess he just quit the study group you know that speaks loudly enough at least it's not a darn statue Jake said as he looked at the plaque with his name on it mounted next to the entrance of the Bur memorial library Jake still had a few twinners in his chest now and then from the bullet that had ripped through there but it hadn't hit anything too vital oh nice Nick Rainey put a hand on Jake's shoulder are you really not coming back as a student that's right I'm just not cut out to be in college these days chief Jake had walked halfway around the plaza when he became aware that a man had fallen in step beside him I've known who you are for a long long time Jake and the names rivers just like your mother's name and your grandfather big Joe's name Jake stopped and frowned over at the older man what are you saying he demanded I'm Barry rivers I am your uncle okay so this is definitely dog and I thought dog was the grandpa because that was a significant figure in Jake's life but this is just one of the two uncles he thought was dead who he's never met before so they might as well be a stranger my uncle Barry is dead the older man shook his head that's what the world is believed for a long time but it's not true he was killed in an explosion along with his wife Jake insisted it was some sort of mob related thing you're claiming the whole bomb story was a fake a shadow seemed to pass over the older man's weathered face it wasn't a fake the explosion was real enough it killed my wife Kate and it came awfully close to killing me and now we're getting his wife's name we're in like maybe the last four pages of the book I've seen pictures of Barry rivers Jake said stubbornly you don't look like the blast tore up my face and when the doctors put it back together I didn't look exactly like I used to why is this happening why is this character something we need information why don't we go sit down on that bench over there he suggested as he nodded toward a concrete bench under one of the trees I'll tell you all about it that sounds like a fade to black and mean line but the chapter just keeps going all right he said but I warn you I'm not going to believe a word of it so for the next half hour Jake sat there mostly in silence asking a question only now and then as the man told him about being funded and equipped by the government to become a sort of one-man strike force free to travel the country and right wrongs wherever he found them taking advantage of his background as a trucker berry Rivera his new identity following with the pose of death of his old one had uses specifically equipped Ren's worth in his justice journey an 18-wheel Avenger someone had dubbed him when the rumors began to rise of a mysterious trucker who dealt death to all sorts of evil people others called him the rig warrior I'm not joking this back story of dog goes on another full page after what I just read I don't get it is this some kind of like Avengers style spin-off page like we're gonna have a dog novel now he's still going halfway down the next page I've been keeping an eye on you Barry grinned okay now he's just complimenting Jake you're the kind of guy who's been getting in trouble because of rules and regulations made by weaker men for thousands of years Jake and by weaker I don't mean physically you've got the sort of code that men used to have a true sense of right and wrong that won't let you stand by and do nothing while innocent people are suffering because of evil you bull right in and take action even who puts you at risk you're more likely to jump into something if it's dangerous because that means you're fighting for something that's actually worthwhile he doesn't know Jake Jake shook his head this is a hell of a lot to dump on a guy yes yeah it is but you're strong enough to take it I'm a leave that alone but why why tell me all this this is my question as well maybe I'm just getting sentimental in my old age anyway I've got a practical motive for talking to you today to work with me Barry said oh my god I was right this is a sequel set up do I get a code name Barry squinted over at him and said yours bigger the horse how about please no Jake said shaking his head not horse that's not a good code name he thought about it now stallion maybe I don't think so berry clapped a hand on his nephews shoulder as they walked off into the pleasant autumn afternoon we'll work on it and Finn I can't wait to read the further adventures of dog and horse and we never get a resolution for the Natali romance even though a lot of pages were devoted to it and we just know that she lived but I guess she's gonna come back in the sequel to I love that there was a sequel teased and I loved how long it took it's like an Avengers movie might end with Nick Fury showing up and being like hey horse boy I'd like to tell you about my team and then that's when it would cut to credit but if this was an Avengers movie instead it would be like Nick Fury shows up mid-credits role and goes hey horse boy I want to tell you about my team and then then horse boy says who are you how did you get here what's your name what's your backstory and then Nick Fury decided to answer all those questions and it turns out the movie has another half-hour to go and we all just sit there watching this slow painstaking conversation and they're just sitting on a park bench while this is happening ultimately it's difficult to engage with trigger warning because it's difficult to gauge its sincerity it's like the sharknado of books sharknado occupies that weird space where it's bad on purpose so like it's not really fun to make fun of or critique sharknado because they didn't try so there isn't much you can say beyond pointing out that they didn't try and you could only really do that once and leave it at that I honestly can't tell if that's the case here it certainly feels bad enough that it probably wouldn't be a sincere effort and yet I feel like it would have gone more off the rails and gone farther with the political stuff if it was only intended as a shock value book to be mocked and reviewed and like if this was the first book of a guy who'd never written anything else before I would be like oh it's a cash grab by being sensationalist but in this author or this author duo at least has written hundreds of books and this is what leads me to my research into the author because I needed to know more so William W Johnstone and J a Johnstone what do we know about these guys let's start with William he dropped out of school when he was fifteen spent some time traveling with a carnival got his GED spent some time in the army became a sheriff for a few years and then finally became an author his backstory should make it pretty unsurprising that he likes to write a lot of pulpy cowboy action stories he also likes to write a bunch of those power fantasy stories about how like the world goes crazy and justifies your habit of collecting firearms and then you have to go out and defend everyone with the guns that you have and usually the people you're forced to shoot happen to be minorities for some reason but there's also a healthy swath of horror on his book list and a couple romances sprinkled in he likes his variety by my count and not counting republication Zoar collector sets William appears to have authored about 416 books with the newest 21 dropping in 2019 William is also dead he's dead I told you there would be twists he's been dead since 2004 the interesting thing to note about his death is that it was publicly unconformity quietly confirmed on a little publication page in one of the books a full three years after his death in making this video I wanted to show you what I found on the website when I ordered trigger warning but the Johnstone's edit this website extremely frequently just in like the week that passed everything had completely changed if I couldn't find any of the text I saw the first time but thanks to the wayback machine I was able to recover a lot of it because it looks like they've used various copy pastes of text in various iterations for the last several decades so the text I found on my first visit appears to have been in use in some form dating back to 2009 firstly their fan correspondents blurb which just lets us know that Jay Johnstone is responsible for managing bills communication and correspondence they don't clarify that that's because William can't reply to emails from beyond the grave next the about the author text is worded very deceptively without outright line they started off with a picture of William this allows them to jump into a bio which sounds like it's in the present tense because they are referring to the photo in the present tense William John Stone is pictured in Central Park New York City with his personal assistant and number-one fan Joe Johnstone Smith if you of course bonded with Bill or this website many of you may have heard from Joe see they want plausible deniability they don't want to outright say William John Stone is alive and be caught lying about it now that feels a bit ghoulish right so instead they're just going about never making it clear whether he's alive or dead they can't say things like William John Stone is an author but they can say things like William John Stone is pictured here finally and to me this is the most morally grey many incarnations of the William John Stone website have used as their homepage a letter written by William himself to his fans and it closes with him saying I greatly appreciate your feedback you are my gold your opinions do count so please keep the letters and emails coming respectfully yours William W John Stone now these were probably really his words but doesn't it feel a little disingenuous to post that up on the homepage of the website as his surviving relative without bothering to clarify now this was written before he died so any emails you do send obviously won't reach him so why the mystery from what I can tell William John Stone's estate is still being handled by his surviving family who are also still reaping the financial benefits of his long career obviously the family decided that there was still money to be made in continuing his legacy but perhaps that there was even more money to be made if people thought he was still alive and they could continue to publish new books under the name of their dead relative for the next decade I mean I get it like why mess with a winning formula it also seems very insidious and creepy but I get it and they've been more or less getting away with it for 15 years I think only big fans bother to check and find out that he's dead if I may play junior detective I'm gonna go ahead and guess that he stopped actively writing in the late 90s around 1996 and then maybe at that point he had some unfinished manuscripts that were ready to be cleaned up and sent to publisher maybe fleshed out a little more but they were mostly his work the reason I think this is if you look at his book lists his action titles seem to taper off in the late 90s and then pick up publication again in 2005 plus I can't help but notice that Williams seemed to really enjoy writing horror novels through all of the 80s and 90s and then stopped abruptly in 1996 and hasn't touched the genre since I take this to mean that Jay Johnstone has been doing most or all of the writing post 1996 and either isn't interested in the horror genre or cynically decided there wasn't as much money in it so as I said if we include the announced releases for 2019 there are 416 books credited to William W Johnstone and of those 268 were released after his death in fairness William himself does appear to have been a very prolific author however it won't be long before the majority of his legacy is not even his actual work so now let's take a look at Jay a John Stone Joe supposedly worked as Williams typist editor secretary for a years preceding his death this might have been something like an apprenticeship so in theory this would make Joe an apt candidate to continue Williams legacy because Joe would have been familiar with Williams style so when you hear the narrative that William had begun all these books prior to his death and Joe is just a qualified candidate wrapping them up and publishing them posthumously you're like okay yeah that sounds that sounds reasonable and this is supposedly what's going on supposedly Joe is just wrapping up those those unfinished manuscripts this is all still a collaborative process and if the Johnstone family had their way you would not know anything about Joe the only true bio I was able to find was on a third-party website where they had written up a profile but on the family site you see maybe one fence its correspondence may be handled by Joe website is run by Joe but Joe is very much a shadowy figure so this mystery round Joe is why it took a little bit of extracurricular googling on my part to find out this next twist Joe Johnstone is a woman yeah I was totally blindsided by this information and like I get that that sexist of me that I read this writing and just kind of assumed it was written by a man I thought that Joe was a nephew or son or perhaps grandson but Joe is Joann Johnstone and she is his niece in my defense I think a lot of people see initials and just assume it's a man which is why when they published Harry Potter they did JK Rowling because they didn't want little boys to see a woman's name and think it was a girl book and come on we all know why I thought this book was written by a man right and I think it's not a coincidence that I had to go out of my way to get this information I think it is being deliberately concealed in the book itself and on most incarnations of their beautifully designed website the Johnstone's are very careful not to refer to JH on stone by any pronouns at all it's not really rocket science to start drawing conclusions about why that might be John stones work is targeted at a very male demographic a very manly male demographic a very big matter about soldiers and cowboys and action heroes and who knows if the male audience would trust a female perspective on that kind of story but surely by now Joe's body of work the over 200 books these people have been consuming that were written by her should be enough to stand on their own merits I mean I just use JK Rowling as an example and like they didn't put her name on the cover but it was in the dust jacket they weren't actively hiding it she was doing interviews and stuff and they trusted that after kids got into Harry Potter they wouldn't stop reading it when they found out it was written by a woman and if so isn't that a little sad to think of Little Joe slaving away in her uncle's study as he gets older and older and she shoulders more and more of the work honing his craft and mimicking his style secretly aiding in his work for years and then even after his death having to attribute your own work to this looming ghosts of this agent carnival worker writing for an audience she earnestly believes wouldn't accept her under her own name is this pressure coming from the rest of the Johnstone family or is this a call that Joe herself made to make herself the dirty secret of this Empire because I think it was Joe Joe is the one that's running the website she seems in charge of the way the company comes across I don't know this maddis story is just very interesting to me and I'm not gonna make any definitive statements but I feel like I have a pretty good guess for why there's all this subterfuge on the part of the Johnstone family I think Joe operates this way because she doesn't even have a clear picture in her mind of what bad thing would happen if this ruse fell apart I think she knows being forthright would be healthier and less stressful and less creepy if they were transparent and they published the books under joe's name and on the inside cover there like she learned her craft from her famous and beloved uncle and carries on his legacy through her own work it's very possible that nothing would happen and they would sell the exact same amount of books but it's at least possible that something bad would happen and I think to Joe maintaining the status quo even if it's not making you happy is just the safest option cuz the status quo is safe and known that's why William dabbled in horror and Joe never does she just expands on her late uncle's most popular topics again and again I think Jay Johnstone is very afraid of the idea of change and the unfamiliar I think it intimidates her it's definitely some pretty heavy baggage but fortunately she doesn't allow it to affect the themes of her writing at all you do you like my don't tread on me shirt that says their make be snakes I rush ordered it so that I could wear it in the video and it was almost late getting to mean they physically called me it was like a 24-hour t-shirt printing service and they were like there's a typo in the text and I had to be like no it's just like that I will be putting it on red bubble where it will hopefully be better quality because this shirt is very stiff and Scratchy don't worry I'll enable it in plus sizes in case you're a big man

Channel: Jenny Nicholson

Views: 2,571,945

Rating: 4.9213853 out of 5

Keywords: william w johnstone, j a johnstone, book, did I put that it's a book in the description, realistically who will be looking up this book to benefit from these tags

Id: qMgMr0JcYJ4

Length: 88min 39sec (5319 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 20 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/PKPhyre]

The best thing about right-wing fiction is its complete inability to have any kind of focus or restraint. Like within the first 20 min we've got "lol so triggered" college kids, false racism accusations, a fucking trans-racial character(?????), and goddamn Antifa supersoldiers. Its always just a stream of consciousness spew of any and everything they don't like.

The second best thing is the intense homoeroticism of how they give such lavish descriptions of how big and muscular all the good ol boys are.

[u/scrawledfilefish]

An hour and 30 minutes? Jenny, I love you, girl, but I got shit I need to do tod--

(90 minutes lay-tair)

God dammit.

Also, can I just say, one of the central themes of the book is how Kids These Days are wasting time in college learning about useless topics like feminism, social justice, oppression of minority groups...and the author of this book has to hide the fact that she's a woman because there's a non-insignificant chance that her audience will turn against her if they find out her gender. Hmmm. HMMMM.

EDIT: spelling

[u/deded55]

B I G

[u/carfniex]

i got half way through this whilst eating lunch today, the book is absolutely fucking insane. right wingers live in this incredible world where they're constantly under attack from literal cartoon villains. the main character is attacked by LITERALLY ANTIFA in the first chapter. a bunch of antifa people were just like, hanging out, with weapons, ready to beat him up, at a university. i mean just what

[u/[deleted]]

I was not expecting that to turn into the ballad of Jo "best kept family secret" Johnstone.

[u/Herac1es]

I remember putting this book up once and it stood out to me because of the author, William Johnstone has so many westerns out he competes for shelf-space with Louis L'amour in that each takes 3 or 4 shelves each. I was shocked to follow the same trail Jenny did and found that he's actually been dead for like a decade and someone else has been using his name as a sockpuppet to make monies.

[u/PoorCobblerFamily]

The author doesn't even know about guns. At 12:18 he describes a flashback of his grand pa shooting skeet (though I doubt it was actual skeet) and thinks you shoot regular buck shot instead of bird shot.

[u/kkdarknight]

One 👏 hour 👏 twenty 👏 eight 👏

[u/huffsturbo]

I’m glad Jenny is here. And this video is fucking hysterical by the way.