Blog Tour: The Protectors by Bernard Lee Deleo

This virtual book tour is hosted by The Book Trailers Showcase.Welcome to So Many Book, So Little Time, and my day on the tour. It is my pleasure to be the very first day on the tour, and to open it with my own review. But before I do that, I want to give you a little bio info on the author, Bernard Lee Deleo from his own POV:

I’ve fixed cars and trucks for over three decades in my one man shop in Oakland, CA. I write adventure novels and have contracted two of them out to E-book publishers. I served four years in the US Navy, three aboard the Aircraft Carrier USS Ranger. After my discharge in 1972 I graduated from Chabot College with an AA degree in Auto Technology and a BA degree in English from Cal State Hayward. Wild Child Publishing released my writer/assassin novel COLD BLOODED in November of 2011. I’ve also self-published eleven novels, all of which are available on Amazon, including my new release, THE PROTECTORS. I love writing of all kinds, and have just begun writing in the very different genre of screenplay writing. In addition to new projects I hope to adapt some of my novels into screenplays. At this time I am completing a YA/Paranormal trilogy, I plan to release in the next year, and I have a fantasy paranormal titled LAYLA which I will release in the coming months.

Bernard, I’d like to wish  you a belated thank you for serving our country, and say that I’d love to get a chance to read  your YA paranormal books when you get it finished.

Title: The Protectors
Series: none
Author: Bernard Lee Deleo
Published Date: October 28, 2012
Publisher: RJ Parker Publishing
Format: ebook
Pages: 355
ASIN: B008OPE1VC
Copy provided by:  The Book Trailers Showcase
Genre: crime, thriller, suspense
Add to: Goodreads
Purchase: Amazon
Rating: 4 stars

Book synopsis on Amazon.com: Connor Bradwick and Ellie James enforce the law in one of the perennially most dangerous cities in the country: Oakland, CA. Bradwick snaps when he and James bust in on a kidnapping ring, enslaving children for pornography. He brutally executes the three kidnappers, stunning James. He sets up the scene to pass for self-defense with Ellie James cooperation. Their ruse succeeds, triggering a two cop crackdown on crime the city of Oakland’s leaders scurry to stop. Dedicated to end ‘look the other way’ crime suppression tactics, ending in destruction and death for the common people in Oakland, Bradwick and James decide it’s time to go on offense.
Connor explains it this way after they rescue the kidnapped children, “The kids made me start thinking about how I want folks to look at us. I don’t care anymore to visit someone to tell them we found the people who broke into their business or house and robbed them blind. I want them to wave at us from their house or business as we go by because we prevent the gangbangers, drug dealers and thugs from terrorizing them.”
The crime war takes on different meaning when they bust an MS-13 El Salvadoran gangster’s illegal alien processing center. Connor and Ellie run headlong into a corrupt politician on the gangster’s payroll, and the terrorists behind him. Soon, everyday crime fighting busts become a fond memory.

My review: The main characters, Ellie and Connor were well-written, with enough of their normal, every-day lives put in there as detail to make them believable. Enough of the detail was put in there, but not too much as to make it boring. The camraderie in a scene between Connor and Ellie’s family really shows that their partnership has gone to a level where they are part of each other. I don’t know much about real-life cops and their partners but I would hope it would be like that.

Vigilante justice: that’s such a razor thin line they walked in this book. In the beginning it just seemed way over the top. Part of me wanted to root for them, part of me was horrified at the reality that our justice system just isn’t adequate to properly deal with the criminal section of society. And yet, there are the rare stories you hear of where cops go rogue and something goes completely and utterly wrong. But the behind the scenes look at the politics that go on in the police in this book make me wonder if something really did go wrong, or if those stories that we do hear of are good cops being thrown under the bus.

This book really made me think and question the behind the scenes of different jobs. It made me so grateful that I have a job where I can just keep my head down, go to work, and leave at the end of the day. A book that can make me think, and not just read, is a great book, and the author has done an exceptional job of that!