Book Review: Blind Fear by Brandon Webb and John David Mann

Finn is on the run, hunted by the FBI for horrific war crimes he didn’t commit, reeling from his best friend’s death, and trying to prove his innocence while staying completely off the grid. He is determined to bring the guilty to justice. The excitement never rachets down: Blind Fear is a book that demands you strap in, pay attention, and hang on tight. Chief Finn knows there’s a target on his back, hence his decision to lie low while feverishly combing the dark web, “hunting for the rogue officer responsible for the crimes he is accused of committing.” The AWOL SEAL is holed up on the idyllic island of Vieques. He works for an old man, Zacharias, who has “been blind for nearly fifty years,” but that hasn’t stopped him from running a popular seafood restaurant. Zacharias’s grandchildren, Pedro, and Miranda, help Papi out, with another “employee to help carry the load during peak hours.” 

For the past eight months, that spot had been filled by an itinerant American. “Mimo,” they called the newcomer, in part because he was silent when he walked. 

 

Or nearly silent.

 

Unlike anyone else Finn had ever known, Zacharias could always hear him coming.

One night, Finn hears Zacharias drop a pot. Something is wrong. Zacharias tells him, “They never came home.” It’s the quintessential American story—a loner fighting for his life—but when Pedro and Miranda go missing, former Navy SEAL Sniper Finn emerges from the safety of the shadows to find them and bring them safely back to their Papi.

Finn retraces the youngsters’ movements and determines they must have been taken to the big island, Puerto Rico. Finn knows he’s making himself a more visible target by going to PR, but he has an uncanny ability to be everyman, to disappear into the background. The reader learns a lot about Puerto Rican history. The contrast between the world of tourists and the workday lives of the inhabitants is palpable. A local tells him that once PR grew all the food they needed, but now, everything is imported: “We got three strata to this island’s class system. The wealthy. The tourists. And everyone else.” Some call PR the Island of Enchantment but to the poverty-stricken locals, it’s more the Island of Abandonment.

Finn soon discovers that everyone in the village where he tracks down the kids is so scared, including the local priest. To find Pedro and Miranda, Finn must establish a presence, to “infiltrate the island’s dangerous criminal underbelly and expose a shadowy crime network known as La Empresa,” which translates to The Enterprise. 

As Finn skulks about, trying as best he can to stay below the radar, FBI Agent Rivera is sent to PR to find and extract Finn—so he can be brought to justice. Rivera labels Finn a serial killer, but he is corrected.

“War criminal,” she repeated. “Not just serial killer. The man slaughtered an entire village of farm families in Yemen, then murdered his lieutenant and three teammates to cover his tracks.” 

Who is this woman, Rivera asks: “Halsey, Monica,” she said. “US Navy JAG Corps. But think of me as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.” Come again? “We always get our man,” Monica tells Rivera.

If that’s not enough excitement and tension, a wicked once-in-a-lifetime hurricane is brewing. Webb and Mann parallel Finn’s quest with the children’s odyssey. Pedro tells his sister the history of the word hurricane while they’re hiding in the forest from a rogue cop.

“Well,” said Pedro, “Juracán is where the word ‘hurricane’ comes from. That’s the god of chaos.”

 

They lay silent for a while.

 

Mayhem, he thought. That was the word he’d been looking for. The god of chaos and mayhem.

Finn finds out the children are being held on a boat—a boat that will be viciously buffeted once the high winds and roiling seas arrive. Being on the water is Navy SEAL Finn’s happy place, but the situation will test Finn’s abilities to the max. Pedro had it right when he described hurricanes as chaos and mayhem.

Lovers of military thrillers will find Blind Fear right up their alley. Finn is a lone wolf, a brilliantly talented man on a mission. He will not rest until his name is cleared: he knows it was not him who massacred civilians. Blind Fear does not end his quest. The series will continue because Finn has a bead on the villain. He knows proving it will not be easy but isn’t it fortuitous that he’s a Navy SEAL? The words The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday are etched into his consciousness.