Without Hesitation: The Rasner Effect II
Mark Rosendorf
L & L Dreamspel

Order from Amazon

Mark Rosendorf’s "Without Hesitation: The Rasner Effect II“ sequel to "The Rasner Effect" begins with a safety officer telling Clara Blue to relax. But, how?With his knee pressed against her temple, relaxing was not easy to do.

From that point we remember that the hired killers comprising Duke Organization left a trail of corpses behind when they freed her from Brookhill Children's Psychiatric residence. So how did Clara Blue find herself returned to the hateful place. One attempt to escape follows another only to be stopped by a horrifying security system and guards who have little tolerance for escape attempts or those who perpetrate them.

Clara’s attempts to escape do not succeed sending her into seclusion time after time where she becomes progressively more delusional whilst trussed in a strait jacket laying in the padded cell.

Arrival to Brookhill of Jennifer Duke, daughter of the founder of the Duke Organization gives Clara hope. Surely Jen has come to take her out of this miserable place. But it doesn’t take long for Clara to realize Jen has something else in mind. Working as a therapist Jennifer Duke is determined to regroup a Duke Organization and track down Jake Scarberry, Rick Rasner’s old nemesis and the cause for both Rick’s demise and the break up of the Duke Organization.

While Jake hides in a witness protection situation working as a bouncer, Jennifer fixates on her one goal: to kill Jake and Clara sets about to try to enlist recruits for Jen’s revived mercenary troop.

Jake Scarberry, has been a living an ordinary life under the witness protection program. It is a life he enjoys and has no plans leave; if Jennifer Duke gets her way, Jake may have no choice but to return to the life he wants to leave behind.

Clara Blue and the band of murderous adolescents housed at Brookhill agree that Jen and her plan to get them out of the facility is something they all want. However, despite Jennifer’s experience and a plan that sounds like it should work, nothing seems to go as it should.

Before long Jake is out of the witness protection program, Brookhill is in disarray, Rick Rasner is more than a memory, and Clara and a not so merry band find their lives entwining in a gore filled thriller.

Writer Rosendorf has again crafted a properly delivered spine tingling work filled with twists and turns, characters who appear as they are not, and others who perform as expected. Locales are well detailed, action is intense, red herrings are tossed in to create some unexpected situations and turn arounds. How they are to be resolved will no doubt be revealed in the next work which writer Rosendorf says is coming soon.

Happy to recommend Mark Rosendorf’s „Without Hesitation: The Rasner Effect II“ for those enjoy plenty of action, surprising outcome and just plain good writing filled with suspense, characters to hate and some to almost like and a keep ‘em guessing quality. Not the book for a dark and stormy night.

The Rasner Effect
Mark Rosendorf
L & L Dreamspel

Order from the Author

Mark Rosendorf, „The Rasner Effect“ opens with chaos. Jake Scarberry listened to the panicked screams of civilians running for their lives all along the expressway. The explosion had caught them all unaware.

When Jake awoke a week later it was to learn that his mercenary work had ended. Worst luck. Former special ops Jake had turned to mercenary activities when his military unit was disbanded.

Across town Rick Rasner too awoke, he felt groggy and confused. Across the room sat a doctor, however, Rick was not in a hospital. A prototype microchip implanted in Rick’s head is projected to manage his vicious, aggressive behavior, as a side affect memories of his past life are all but destroyed.

Seven years later Jake toils at a dead end job cleaning the messes in a frat house as a member of the witness protection program, and Rick is set to begin work as a therapist at the Brookhill Children’s Psychiatric Residence. Jake remembers his former life and pines for it, Rick can remember little if anything of his prior to awakening in that room where a doctor sat.

The narrative weaves an interesting, convoluted tale which travels chapter by chapter featuring first Jake and his discontent and Rick and his work at the psychiatric facility. Interspersed is the remnant of the Duke Organization. This assassins group was begun by Jake’s old special ops compadre Col Duke. Jennifer Duke has been searching for Rick from the fateful day the organization set off that vicious explosion that destroyed much of New York, AND changed Rick’s life so completely.

When a Duke operative, computer expert Derrick, locates Rick the remnant of the organization regroups, treks to the facility and all hell breaks loose.

Filled with action, trepidation and anticipation from the opening lines; „The Rasner Effect“ is a compelling read start to finish. Brutality, bridge explosion, loss of memory, diabolical director of a children’s facility, a top secret military experiment, the witness protection program, growing bond between therapist and teen patient, a hostage situation, an abduction, death, carnage and a destructive fire which may or may not have destroyed the body of any one inside, debriefing with a pain in the neck General and return to the witness protection program all serve to forward the complex tale.

„The Rasner Effect“ is a multifaceted psychological thriller peopled with convincing characters, packed with gritty, pithy discourse all set against a backdrop of trickery, maneuvering and danger.

The outcome of this narrative may surprise readers, and will indisputably cause reader speculation re who really is the good guy, and who is not. Leaving the question of death or not, of one major figure in that devastating fire coupled with a certain understanding that another of the major players is left alive at the end of the book leads to conjecture whether or not a sequel may be in the future. I hope there it. Good read, happy to recommend.