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Those That Remain (The Mechanic Trilogy – 1) by Rob Ashman

The heat of the Florida summer is relentless. Lucas is coasting to retirement in a mundane Florida police precinct. His world falls apart when a brutal serial killer codenamed Mechanic lands on his patch.

Three years ago they thought Mechanic was dead. But Mechanic is very much alive and the savage ritualistic murders continue. No family is safe from the threat of slaughter at this sadistic killer’s hands.

Mechanic is always one step ahead and Lucas is forced to operate outside the law.

Who can he trust?

The shocking truth is more terrifying than Lucas could ever imagine … and he has to put his life on the line to get it.

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Author’s Bio

Rob is married to Karen with two grown up daughters. He is originally from South Wales and after moving around with work settled in North Lincolnshire where he’s spent the last twenty-two years.

Like all good welsh valley boys Rob worked for the National Coal Board after leaving school at sixteen and went to University at the tender age of twenty-three when the pit closures began to bite. Since then he’s worked in a variety of manufacturing and consulting roles both in the UK and abroad.

It took Rob twenty-four years to write his first book. He only became serious about writing it when his dad got cancer. It was an aggressive illness and Rob gave up work for three months to look after him and his mum. Writing Those That Remain became his coping mechanism. After he wrote the book his family encouraged him to continue, so not being one for half measures, Rob got himself made redundant, went self-employed so he could devote more time to writing and four years later the Mechanic Trilogy is the result.

When he is not writing, Rob is a frustrated chef with a liking for beer and prosecco, and is known for occasional outbreaks of dancing.

Rob will be publishing all three books in the Mechanic Trilogy with Bloodhound Books – the second novel is titled In Your Name and the third is called Pay The Penance.

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My Review

5 stars

Detective Edmund Lucas wants nothing more than to retire in peace and quiet. But when he is called in to the burglary of the daughter of a congressman, things take a turn for the worst. On the television is a finger print of the killer Mechanic. This should be impossible since he was supposed to have died three years earlier. As they look around the house the detectives are at a loss since nothing matches his motive. Then they discover the family next door.

Mechanic had a rough childhood and now finds himself killing or hurting himself to stop the voices in his head. But he is cleaver and the police are going to start finding one dead end after another. They look to the original FBI profiler for this case and learn he has been killed. Thankfully his protégé is still around and can help. But how did he survive and will Lucas be able to stop him before he adds more lives to his list.

This is an amazing, bloody good story. I loved Lucas, he just wants to end his career on a good note not get wrapped up with Mechanic. But it will be up to him to stop him. Mechanic, although the bad guy, you can almost feel for him and the torture that he goes through. Mind you that doesn’t excuse the brutal killings and such.

This story will draw you in and not let you go. I just wanted to read a couple chapters and ended up reading the whole book and got nothing accomplished around the house. This is brutal and engrossing but remember it is going to be a trilogy. All I have to say to Rob Ashman about that is, “Hurry up and get writing!!!”

I received Those That Remain from Bloodhound Books for free. This has in no way influenced my opinion of this book.

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