She Treads Softly: Running Blind

Saturday, November 22, 2025

Running Blind

Running Blind by Paul Heatley
12/7/25; 303 pages
Inkubator Books
Tom Rollins #19

Running Blind by Paul Heatley is a very highly recommended action-packed thriller and the 19th book in the Tom Rollins series. Tom Rollins, PhD and former black ops specialist, is known for using his training and lethal skills in the pursuit of justice. This can be read as a standalone novel.

Tom is working as a bartender in Reno when he is approached by a woman who happens to be with the CIA. Jess Chen has been told about Tom's skill and needs to recruit him to assist her on a mission. An undercover agent, Hao, is helping Li, a Chinese defector reach the USA. She has a USB drive containing the identities of deep-cover moles embedded throughout American intelligence. Jess needs Tom's help to meet Hao and Li and assist in safely getting the woman and the USB drive to Langley. Once Tom agrees to help her, the mission quickly becomes more complicated when both the Chinese government and a ruthless Triad network try to eliminate them both.

This is another well-written, intense addition to the series where the good guy eliminates all the antagonists in the pursuit of justice. Tom has a lethal skill set and he needs it as they are constantly being tracked and attacked. The plot becomes more complicated when it becomes clear that there is a mole operating within the CIA so they aren't safe anywhere. Set disbelief aside and follow the fierce non-stop action. This is my favorite book in the series to date. I'm anxiously awaiting Tom's next mission.

Running Blind is an excellent choice for readers who like nonstop action featuring a take-no-prisoners black op specialist. Thanks to Inkubator Books for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

No comments:

Post a Comment

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.