Nick Mason Books in Order

The Nick Mason books take Steve Hamilton's interest in damaged heroes into a harder, more urban direction. Nick is a Chicago thief serving twenty five to life when he is offered an impossible deal. Crime boss Darius Cole can arrange his early release, but in return Nick must do whatever Cole asks, whenever the phone rings.

In The Second Life of Nick Mason that bargain plays out in painful detail. Nick walks out of prison into a luxury townhouse, a fast car, and a steady stream of cash, but none of it really belongs to him. He is on call around the clock to carry out violent jobs for Cole, all while trying to see his young daughter and stay off the radar of the detective who put him away.

Exit Strategy raises the stakes again. Cole is angling for a new trial, and the only people who can keep him behind bars are three protected witnesses hidden inside the federal witness security program. Nick is ordered to find them inside heavily guarded, secret facilities and make sure they never testify. At the same time, the assassin he replaced is on his trail, determined to remove the man who took his place.

In An Honorable Assassin Nick has broken free of Cole, only to discover that his skills have attracted even more powerful attention. He is flown to Jakarta to serve as lead assassin for a sprawling shadow organization and told to kill Hashim Baya, known as the Crocodile, the top name on Interpol's most wanted list. When the mission goes wrong and Baya escapes, Nick decides his only hope of protecting his ex wife and daughter is to hunt the man down himself.

That hunt puts him on a collision course with Martin Sauvage, an Interpol agent who also wants Baya, but alive. Mason and Sauvage chase the same target across continents, closing in on a final confrontation that may be the only way Nick can buy back a future that is truly his.

The series reads like a string of lean, high tension action novels, full of break ins, car chases, and tight escapes. Underneath the set pieces is a constant question about what freedom really costs and how far a person can go in the name of family before there is no way back. For the full effect it is best to start with The Second Life of Nick Mason and follow his story in order, watching each bad decision tighten the grip of the world he is trying to escape.