Donovan Creed is not a nice guy. He's an assassin for hire with his own set of rules. Because Creed is often used by the government for unsavory work, he gets a lot of leeway (and support) in his non-government work.

In general, the Donovan Creed series is a quirky, twisted, roller-coaster thriller ride. Often the dialogue is cheesy, the action over-the-top and the protagonist (anti-hero?) bigger than life, but the book still manage to be a fun, quick and mindless read. These are the books you can go to after a slog through other heavy, depressing, pretentious reads just to escape for a bit. This is a love-it or hate-it kind of series. I RECOMMEND THAT YOU READ THEM IN ORDER.

Amazon description: When Rachel Case goes to the doctor for a routine blood test, scientists are astonished to learn she possesses a gene no one else on earth seems to have—a gene that holds the key to protecting the world from the deadliest pandemic in history. When government operatives kidnap Rachel in order to develop a vaccine, her lover, Donovan Creed, realizes the only way he can find Rachel is to enlist the help of her current husband, Sam. ( )

Here’s another contender for the best opening line to a book: “MOST PEOPLE WOULD think getting bit on the balls by a water moccasin while sitting on the toilet in their own home would be the worst thing that could happen that day.” Sam Case learns the hard way that not helping Donovan Creed may reap all sorts of bad things. Including the fake amputation of his leg.

Again, I really am enjoying John Locke’s Donovan Creed series. And what a deal: all are available for $.99 for your Kindle. As I have noted in other reviews in the Creed series, they are a combination broad farce, comic Bondian thriller, and mystery. All are competently written and occasionally include side-slapping comedy and witty repartee.

In this one, Creed, whose face has been surgically altered into the most handsome man in the world to hide his former identity, is looking for his married girlfriend Rachel (Sam’s wife) because as it happens she is naturally immune to the great Spanish flu virus of 1918 (which, of course, originated in Kansas,)and Creed speculates she has been kidnapped by the government to harvest her eggs and blood so a vaccine will be available in case terrorists use the flu as a terror weapon. “By the time it hit Spain it was so deadly they called it the Spanish Flu. And it’s been called that, ever since.” I hold up my hand. “You mean to tell me that because a single pig in Kansas ate some duck shit one morning, 100 million people died?” “Yes.” (Did I mention the tongue in cheek nature of these stories?) Since Creed is a Homeland Security assassin and counter-terrorist (and Homeland Security countenances every imaginable crime in order to deter terrorism,) he has access to all sorts of sophisticated tools and Lear 60 to ferry him around.

How can you not like a book that has lines like this: “Damn right you haven’t. And her perfect breath dances behind teeth as pure and white as the 3,617 words Melville used in Chapter 42 to describe how white the whale was. “ and referring to a character’s shillelagh, “Have you ever hit anyone with it?” “No, but my grandmother claims to have used it to beat off the men in her neighborhood.” “My grandmother used her hand,” I say. “Excuse me?”

Droll, indeed. ( )