It had been a while since I read a crime thriller and figured it was about time. The Bricklayer by Noah Boyd was an excellent read and honestly I couldn’t believe this was a debut novel. For those of you looking for a slick, well paced, and action packed story this is definitely a good choice. Right from the very beginning Boyd begins you down a path that looks straight forward just until you think you’ve got it figured out.

Ex-FBI agent Steve Vail is called into help solve this case that at just kept getting more dangerous throughout the book. This was hardly just the typical murder and extortion scheme. For every failed attempt the FBI made the stakes got higher and the deaths increased. Vail had to deal with very cryptic clues, diabolical traps, and villains willing to kill just about anyone (especially Vail) in the way of keeping the money. Every failed attempt a reclaiming the cash got increasingly more costly both in lives and the expected cash given.

This was a great read that kept me engaged and guessing who was behind the crimes from beginning to end. I really enjoyed the characters of Vail and his FBI handler Kate Bannon. There were times that it truly felt like it could have been a FBI case despite the fact it was clearly a work of fiction. With Boyd’s experience in the FBI I believe made this book far more believable with some of the details of how things worked and got done there in office and on the field. I suspect many of the details built into this novel stemmed from real world experiences making the characters, good and bad, really come to life in a way the felt natural.

Overall, this was a great crime thriller/mystery all rolled up in a nice package. I would definitely suggest you pick up a copy of The Bricklayer and have a good time reading an action packed experience. I should also mention I found this book not to long after reading The Intercept by Dick Wolf. Yes, one and the same, Dick Wolf who created the ground breaking popular show Law and Order. If you don’t know who that is or the show either you’ve been living under a rock or really young. In any case – this was a great book as was The Intercept. Both action packed reads in their own right, but I found The Bricklayer to be the better of the two. Could be personal preference of course so I will leave that up to you decide on your own.