Prey No More Review

Prey No More
By Lee Matthew Goldberg

Prey No More is the second book in Lee Matthew Goldberg’s The Desire Card  series. Set twenty years after the first book, this book follows J.D. Storm, a former Army sniper who lost an eye while serving in the Middle East. He joined The Desire Card, an organization that will fulfill any wish for anyone willing to pay enough. All wishes fulfilled, regardless of laws or morality.

J.D. Storm wants to start life over and leave his current identity behind. As James Dean, he murders and tortures people for high-paying customers of The Desire Card. When J.D. messes up a couple of assignments for The Card, he has only two options – run away or be killed. Death is the only way to leave, but J.D. is determined to figure out how to escape and survive The Card.

J.D. believes that the only way to stay alive is by murdering the head of The Card, Clark Gable. Mr. Gable has a seemingly endless supply of money and agents focused on taking him out, so J.D. cannot slow down or trust anyone. He catches up with a girl he had obsessed over since he reported to the Army and has to decide whether Annie will betray him, since she has a questionable past.

Like its predecessor, Prey No More compels the reader to ponder deeper questions like:

• Does everyone draw a line that they would not morally cross? What would they do if survival required crossing that line?
• Are you willing to let an innocent person die to save yourself? How many have to die in your stead?  
• Can anyone throw away their past and create a whole new identity? Or will they keep making the disastrous choices that were ingrained in them by their previous thoughts and actions?
• How does Lee Matthew Goldberg come up with such horrific yet compelling depravity? Gastro-intestinal problems? Picked last for school teams? It’s unsettling that someone thinking up books like these could just walk amongst us undetected.

Prey No More dances on the line between gripping story and horror porn. Goldberg successfully depicts the squalid characters without turning them into tropes and keeps the main character in worsening treacherous situations without becoming cartoonish. Instead of being a slasher pic trying to spill as much blood as possible, it’s the grisly car wreck that you don’t think you want to look at but can’t help but stare deeply at its gruesomeness. You’re in too deep yourself and have to read through the disturbing conclusion before you can free yourself.

I would advise reading the series in order, if possible. The first book, Immoral Origins, includes a much deeper picture of The Desire Card and how far the organization will go to fulfill all wishes. Starting with Prey No More can leave the impression that The Desire Card just employs hitmen, but Immoral Origins shows its far deeper moral bankruptcy. The only explicit overlap occurs when J.D.has a fleeting thought of one of the previous book’s characters. 

The third book in The Desire Card series, All Sins Fulfilled, has been released. Maybe I should stay away from it, but I don’t want to. I’ve already gotten the book.

Thank you, Black Tide Book Tours  and Rough Edges Press, for providing me a review copy of this book.