The Alcoholic Mercenary

Set in Naples, Italy in the 1970s, The Alcoholic Mercenary follows two stories: the first of American NIS agent Rachel Welch as she navigates a new assignment and the complications surrounding the death of her predecessor, the second of newly-turned mercenary-for-the-mafia Nicolo Di Cuma.

In the beginning, Rachel’s character was a major drawback for me – as a female in a male-dominated industry myself, I found her reactions to those around her as overly-sensitive and unnecessarily disdainful. That said, there were some instances where I could understand her disgust and offense taken at body language or verbal attacks from the men around her. By the end, I found Rachel’s character much more likeable, which it’s my interpretation that was the point.

All of Hughes’ other characters were very well-written the main cast were very likeable or complex, or a combination thereof.

The storyline itself was at times difficult to follow because of all of the names and illicit activities occurring almost simultaneously, but I only had to backtrack once or twice. Hughes’ did an admirable job of reminding the reader who a character was in a subtle way – it never felt like I was reading too much repetitive information, but rather was provided just enough to jog my memory on how a character came in to play.

The ending was genuinely shocking. By the end, I could only see one way out of the situation for Nicolo, so his circumstance wasn’t the surprising part, but rather all of the loose ends that were tied up after the reader discovers Nicolo’s fate that genuinely left me staring at the pages, gaping in shock.

At the end of the book, Hughes included a section to provide some additional information about the characters, setting, and organizations used throughout the plot, which I absolutely loved. It’s always a treat to gain insight into why an author makes the decisions they do and I learned a few things as well.

There’s a teaser for the next book in the series, The Reluctant Mother, which I cannot wait to learn more about!

*I received a copy of this book for free and am leaving this review voluntarily*

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