Jon Land The Seven Sins: The Tyrant Ascending

The Seven Sins: The Tyrant Ascending

Jon Land

Forge, Jun 2008, $24.95

ISBN 9780765315342

In 1975 in Caltagirone, Sicily his farm family was murdered when Michael 'The Tyrant' Tiranno was seven years old, but he survived taking his father's gold medaillen with him when he saw them assassinated and took a bullet too. He survived and a Sicilian Mafia Don raised the lad and instilled certain values in the child. As an adult Michael becomes a super real estate king, whose showcase is the Las Vegas casino Seven Sins that accommodates the fantasies of their customers.

However, suicide bombers explode their cars at four Vegas casinos including the Seven Sins. The media, Homeland Security, and most Americans assume Islamic radicals brought their form of terrorism to the sin capital for its symbolism. However, Michael postulates that the other casino hits were to conceal their target inside a Jihad terrorist cloak to throw off the scent. He thinks he was the target. With help from his lawyer Naomi Burns, Michael investigates his theory knowing some of his other properties are at risk by a brilliant diabolical adversary who accepts without any remorse collateral damage of the innocent. However he is unprepared to learn his late father's antique gold medallion that fascinated him as a young child might be at the epicenter of the attacks.

This 368 page thriller is a one sitting action-packed tale that grips the audience from even before the Vegas attacks and never slows down for an iota until the final confrontation. In between readers are escorted on a whirlwind tour all over the place as they accompany Michael and Naomi on their quest to stop an enemy from more destruction. Over the top story line and characters somewhat comic book, but no one is going to care; readers are not landing until the book is finished as few novels are as exciting as the SEVEN SINS is.

Harriet Klausner