WILL SLATER

Full Name:	Will Slater
Nationality:	American
Organization:	Black Force
Occupation	Agent

Creator:	Matt Rogers
Time Span:	2016 - 2020

ABOUT THE SERIES

       Will Slater is an agent with Black Force.
       As explained in a similar write-up for Jason King, Black Force is an unofficial American military operation, conceived and created by upper echelon officers, "top of the food chain" as King refers them, to take on the missions that they felt needed to be done but which few in their right mind would attempt and certainly none would admit to. As a completely off-book organization but financed through funneling from legitimate projects, it sent its men all over the world to handle "things that never would have ordinarily been sanctioned".
       The above mentioned King was the first and best agent that organization had but another agent considered almost as good, and some would say even better, is Slater. When King went "rogue", it was Slater who was chosen to take him down. The encounter, told in the first book mentioned below (and the 3rd in the King series), is impressive.
       Slater is described as African-American, "slightly taller than average, somewhere around six foot". It is further stated that "there wasn't an ounce of fat on his body. He had the lean and wiry physique of a professional athlete".
       Though he would likely claim that he desired peace and serenity in his life, the fact that wherever Slater went, trouble and mayhem inevitably find him would throw considerable doubt on that desire. Being highly trained and obviously so willing to leap into nasty situations, it is not surprising that he is often the only one to come out most tussles.
       While Slater is in Black Force when we first meet him, he does not stay in for long and while King is considered to have rogue by his agency, it is nothing like the way Slater left.

BOOKS

Number of Books:	16
First Appearance:	2016
Last Appearance:	2020


1			Reloaded Written by Matt Rogers Copyright: 2016 Book #3 in the Jason King series. Jason King has been trying very hard to stay off the grid and lay as low as he can. He bought a small villa on Corsica and runs a small seaside bar. Then some unfortunate things happen and he is no longer so hidden and his old group, Black Force, decide he knows too much. Will Slater is the man chosen for the job.

2			Corrupted Written by Matt Rogers Copyright: 2017 Book #5 in the Jason King series. To learn why a party of international relief workers have disappeared while working in a remote village on the Kamchatka Peninsula, Jason King must head there and go up against a ruthless ex-KGB operative who is using slave labor in his mine. He will need help. He calls upon his own adversary turned friend, Will Slater

3			Hunted Written by Matt Rogers Copyright: 2017 Book #6 in the Jason King series. When the boss of the black ops division for whom you work turns bad, it is bad for everyone. The team, including Jason King and Will Slater, are grabbed by the government and thrown into a Navy super-carrier as a prison. If that wasn't bad enough, the Russian oligarch they just hurt wants payback big time and can reach anyone anywhere.

4			Wolf Written by Matt Rogers Copyright: 2017 Book #1 in this series. Will Slater was not looking for serenity when he chose to walk into the battlefield that is modern Yemen. Good thing because when he finds the body of a young boy killed by rebels, he decides to bring retribution.

5			Lion Written by Matt Rogers Copyright: 2018 Book #2 in this series. Still looking for trouble, Will Slater is in Macau and when he sees obvious security men trying to kidnap a young girl off the street, he does not hesitate to leap into action to save her and thus to take on a billionaire casino owner with a secret to preserve.

6			Bear Written by Matt Rogers Copyright: 2018 Book #3 in this series. Not particularly interested in return to Vladivostok, Will Slater heads there now with the plan to take care of some unfinished business. While there he finds a nuclear-powered icebreaker, the biggest of its kind, being built while protected by an army of mercenaries. Looking into it means a whole lot of people upset at him.

7			Lynx Written by Matt Rogers Copyright: 2018 Book #4 in this series. When he rescued the girl in Macau a few months before, Will Slater had entrusted her with an old colleague. Now he gets rumors that man was involved in the Lynx program, designed to turn young girls into killers. Slater will not tolerate that.

8			Bull Written by Matt Rogers Copyright: 2018 Book #5 in this series. It is never good when a government is miffed at you and when it is the U.S., that's a whole lot of bad. Will Slater decides to hide out for a while in eastern Zimbabwe but life throws at him a gang of killers who have been doing as they want for many years and do not plan to stop now. Slater decides to make them reconsider.

9			Weapons Written by Matt Rogers Copyright: 2019 Book #1 in the King and Slater series finds Jason King and Will Slater in New York launching a private war against corruption when they are approached by old employers to help save the country once again.

10			Hawk Written by Matt Rogers Copyright: 2019 Book #6 in this series. The news that Jason King brought to Will Slater was very disturbing and when he heard it, Slater knew he had no real choice but to go after the vengeance that the news demanded. That meant taking on a whole new breed of terrorist. Luckily he and King were a new breed of warrior themselves.

11			Contracts Written by Matt Rogers Copyright: 2019 Book #2 in the King and Slater series has Jason King and Will Slater on their first contract taking them to Nepal to track down a 14-year-old daughter of a high-level black-ops operative who has gone missing en route Mount Everest.

12			Ciphers Written by Matt Rogers Copyright: 2019 Book #3 in the King and Slater series puts Jason King and Will Slater in New York City when a computer virus is inputted into the power grid computers shutting off all power to the five boroughs. As the government tries to cope with such a massive problem, King and Slater race to find who did it.

13			Outlaws Written by Matt Rogers Copyright: 2019 Book #4 in the King and Slater series deals with Will Slater reaching the end of his rope in the black ops life he has lived for so long. He wants out but he knows the powers that be will never let him go and will come after him if he tries. And that will put his friend, Jason King, with a terrible choice.

14			Ghosts Written by Matt Rogers Copyright: 2019 Book #5 in the King and Slater series sees Jason King and Will Slater made outlaws by their old bosses and on their own able to use their skills to help others. Their first recipient is a woman about to be put away for a decade for a crime she did not commit but to help her means going against corruption in a city's government and lots of powerful people to take down.

15			Sharks Written by Matt Rogers Copyright: 2020 Book #6 in the King and Slater series has Jason King and Will Slater tracking some dirty money on its trip to be laundered and find a finance wizard with lots of skills at manipulation and greed and none at caring how it hurts regular people.

16			Messiahs Written by Matt Rogers Copyright: 2020 Book #7 in the King and Slater series. A strange and unsettling cult exists in Wyoming attracts the attention of King and Slater after news of a horrible drug called Bodhi reaches them.

NOVELLAS AND SHORT STORIES

Number of Stories:	3
First Appearance:	2018
Last Appearance:	2019


1			The Hidden Written by Matt Rogers Copyright: 2018 Black Force Shorts #4 - A part of Black Force for six months, 23-year-old Will Slater has already made a name for himself. Now he will really have to challenge himself as in order to investigate a corrupt Chicago police commissioner, he must get himself arrested. That was the easy part. Staying alive inside - not so much

2			The Wicked Written by Matt Rogers Copyright: 2018 Black Force Shorts #8 - Will Slater was in California trying to drink away the memory of some of his missions when his motel door is kicked in and he is given his next mission. He is to find a way into an exclusive VIP club catering to the uber-rich and then befriend the Sinaloa cartel's top interrogator. The man was known only as 'The Wicked'.

3			The Ruins Written by Matt Rogers Copyright: 2019 Black Force Shorts #10 - With one of his worst hangovers plaguing him, Will Slater leaps from a plane over the Taklamakan Desert in China to locate and free three American college dropouts who are rumored to be held by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. They are not happy to see him and neither are the Chinese secret police.

MY COMMENTS

My eyebrows raised quite a bit when I started this series. I had already met Slater in the pages of the Jason King series but now that he was on his own, I wanted to know what he was up to and then more importantly, what the heck would a sane man be doing voluntarily crossing into a hotbed of danger (literal and figurative) like Yemen. It made no sense!
The fun part to the series is that to someone like Slater, it makes as much sense as anything else. Can you say "looking for a fight"? That's Slater. And for the wonderful enjoyment of us readers, he always finds one.

GRADE

My Grade: B+

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