She Treads Softly: Deadly Mistake

Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Deadly Mistake

Deadly Mistake by Rob Sinclair
9/17/25; 354 pages
Boldwood Books
Simon Peake Thriller #2

Deadly Mistake by Rob Sinclair is a highly recommended action-packed thriller. This is the second book in the series featuring former special forces agent Simon Peake.

Peake is living in the country near a small town in Georgia when three men show up at his house offering him a bag full of cash to dispose of a body in the trunk of their car. The problem is two fold. He only knows one of the men and isn't thrilled that he brought strangers to his door to do this job. The second is that the woman in the trunk is not dead. Peake chooses to help the woman and eliminate the two strangers while the man he knows runs off. This decision sets into motion a series of violent, deadly encounters in the world of drug cartels, mob bosses, and rogue CIA operatives.

This is a well-written, fast-paced, action-packed thriller. The danger is palpable and ever present. The tension is high throughout the novel. There is also a whole lot of gruesome violence. I don't think I've read a novel before where so many bones are snapped/broken and joints are dislocated, among many other actions. I will perhaps skip any other books in this series because of the overwhelming violence. It does have an intricate plot and the violence is a natural outcome of the encounters rather than being gratuitous.

Deadly Mistake is a good choice for those who enjoy action-packed thrillers. Thanks to Boldwood Books for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.