Cold Harbor

What do you do when your Country decides you are collateral damage and disposable? How do you cope with 18 months alone, in the dark, with no human contact? What happens when you are pushed you to the edge of sanity but you have the ability to realize that insanity is one short step away? Can you walk that thin line, find the answers, and make yourself whole? These are the questions that confront Gibson Vaughn in the third book of the Gibson Vaughn series.

This book punches so many hot buttons; right vs wrong, justification vs morality, acceptance vs revenge. Fitzsimmons holds a mirror up to his character and doesn’t deflect the image that he is broken, damaged and perhaps beyond redemption. I was on an emotional roller coaster while show more I was reading this book. Could I survive what Gibson Vaughn experienced? Would I even want to? Would I act or react any differently?

I think a reader comes up short if they have not read the two previous books in the series. Each book leads into the next and the story and character development becomes clearer. I look forward to anything that Matthew Fitzsimmons publishes in the future.

Thank you NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for a copy show less

Gibson Vaughn is back & he’s not doing well. Eighteen months in complete isolation has left him clinging to his last shred of sanity. When abruptly freed, he has nothing but 2 travelling companions…the ghosts of his father & childhood fiend Bear. Gib knows it’s not normal to talk to the dead but after losing everything, he takes comfort in their familiar faces.

Once he makes it home, Gib tries to pick up the pieces but never loses sight of his goal. The man responsible for his incarceration will pay. But while he’s putting the plan together, there are a few complications.

Turns out his ex-wife & daughter have disappeared & a very persistent detective would really like to know where he’s been. He also gets some startling news show more regarding Poisonfeather (last book) that seems to be connected to his abduction. Then Bear’s grandmother summons him for an audience. She’s an aristocratic old bat he loathes but she has a plan of her own & if he can pull it off, it just might save his life.

This is book #3 in the series & I’d really recommend reading the others first. The plot is intricate & draws heavily on events from previous story lines. There are many returning characters & as all the little bits & pieces slide into place, it feels like everything that came before will finally become clear & help Gib make sense of what happened to his life.

It’s definitely an action thriller but Gib’s battle with PTSD is a poignant thread that runs through the story. His fragile mental state, conversations with the dead & desperate attempts to reconnect with the living make this character much more complex than your stock action hero.

Questions are answered & true villains revealed. And as tension amps up for the last quarter, a wee beverage might come in handy to help you get through an explosive finale. It’s an ending that will have you wishing you could jump right into book #4. show less

With the death of Poisonfeather (Book #2), Gibson Vaughn is released from an CIA black site isolation cell, but after 18 months, his sanity is questionable. He spends much of the book speaking to the dead (his father and his friend, Bear.) While pretending to re-integrate into society, he plans retribution for his imprisonment, but his long-time nemesis (Calista) blackmails him into rescuing an old friend from a military contractor, reuniting him with Jenn. Of course, Calista has her own agenda. I found the book pretty repetitive and would not recommend it, without reading the earlier books, as people keep popping up from them.

COLD HARBOR by Matthew Fitzsimmons was something of a disappointment to me. When I read an action/adventure story, I expect to have things move at a rapid pace. Each paragraph must either push the story forward or embellish the tale giving me a greater understanding of what is happening. The pace may vary from page to page, but the story has to both move onward and stand on its own merits. COLD HARBOR failed to keep the pace. It may move forward two steps, but it feels like the author is still losing ground.
This is the third book in the Gibson Vaughn stories but it doesn’t have the feel of being a stand alone novel. The further into the story I read, the more convinced I became that this was actually only part of what might be a show more massive, 1000 page manuscript or perhaps even longer. This is a story that relies far too much on the first two books, the ones I haven’t read. Many things happen in those novels, and a vast cast of characters appear on the pages, all of which are referenced in COLD HARBOR, and referenced often. Gibson Vaughn, at the start of the book, is held incommunicado with a prison room, never hearing another sole, seeing another person, for 18 months. His only companions are the ghosts of his father and a girl he knew in childhood.
And then he is released.
Vaughn was a Marine Intel analyst that got caught up in something nasty and ended up in isolation, held by one of our national security agencies. To find out how you’d have to read book two, but you might go back to the beginning with the first outing. Anyway, now he is free and he wants revenge, but he also knows the CIA will be watching him.
There are some things that happen in the book that are involving, but following around a crazy person (the ghosts do appear very, very often) as he slowly plots a revenge on the man who wrong him gets a little stale.
I said this felt like a long manuscript and I meant it. I picture Mr Fitzsimmons presenting a thick MS to an editor, the editor liking it, but handing it back saying that the thing can’t be published in its entirety, so go home and chop it into bits. Also, to add continuity, toss in some references to the earlier books as you make this Goliath into 200 page Davids.
Or at least is feels the way.
Either way I can’t highly recommend this book unless you have read the prior books. Then perhaps it will seem to move with a greater sense of urgency, but then again, I really don’t know. show less

3.5 After a time, actually 18 months, though the wouldn't know the length of this until later, spent in a CIA run facility, in solitary confinement, Gibson is unceremoniously dropped on the same airport runway he was taken from. No longer of sound mind, with absolutely no means, accompanied by bear and his father, dead figures from his past, Gibson turns to one of the only friends he can count on.

These types of espionage thrillers are ones that I have previously only dipped into occasionally. Not my usual reading fare. Not even sure that is the right way to classify this series, but I'm going with it since in my mind that is how they are classified. I was sent a copy of this authors first, The Short Drop, and found myself immersed in show more the life of Gibson Vaughn. This man with extraordinary computer skills, a good man at heart, who finds himself embroiled in things often not of his choosing. Now, accompanied from his two voices from the past, he is given the opportunity to reconnect with two people he cares about and for which he has been searching.

This is a wonderful series. Gibson, a character, this man who has lost virtually everything and everybody he loves, a character of whom I care a great deal. I enjoy this series immensely. Realistic? Well, if you believe in government conspiracies, a government with agencies that work autonomously, and a government that keeps many secrets from their public, than yes. I'll let you be the judge.

ARC from Netgalley. show less

I received a free advance e-copy of this book and have chosen to write an honest and unbiased review. I have no personal affiliation with the author. Wow! Another great Gibson Vaughn thriller. A well-written thriller with excellent character development and an amazing plot. Matthew Fitzsimmons is a great storyteller. We see how a mind can react when a man is in complete isolation for 18 months with no human contact? Gibson paid the price now it’s time for his tormentors to pay. ‘Cold Harbor’ is an action packed page-turner full of twists and turns. Couldn’t put it down; just had to see what was going to happen next. I liked the ending and am looking forward to the next book in the series. I’m anxious to see what the future show more holds for Gibson Vaughn. I really look forward to the day when he will feel safe enough to have a reunion with his daughter and ex-wife. ‘Cold Harbor’ is well worth the read and I look forward to reading more from Matthew Fitzsimmons. show less

This fine series continues nicely culminating in a fully fledged caper at Dulles Airport with bodies dropping everywhere. An intricate solution to several complex problem and a seemingly suitable conclusion. But air, there is a 4th volume in the works; stayed tuned.