NICK MCCARTY

Full Name:	Nick McCarty
Series Name:	Cold Blooded
Nationality:	American
Organization:	CIA
Occupation	Agent

Creator:	Bernard Lee DeLeo
Time Span:	2013 - 2019

ABOUT THE SERIES

       Nick McCarty is a cold-blooded assassin for the CIA.
       Sometimes. By that I mean he is always an assassin. And a darn good one. And a very busy one.
       It is just sometimes he works for the CIA. At least in the beginning of the adventures we have of him and we have a lot. He has his ups and downs with the Agency and sometimes he is ready to take on their mission and sometimes he finds he has to eliminate the people doing the asking. For that reason, it pays to ask from afar.
       The adjective 'cold-blooded' is especially appropriate for McCarty even beyond that being the title of the series. The man has no feelings, or so it seems. He has and does kill with no hesitation and no regret. If someone in his opinion needs killing, he answers the call and does not have any paigns over it. Oh, on occasion he might rue the fact that a person had to be put down but never because he was the one doing it.
       McCarty has been doing his job without error for quite a few years and plans on continuing it for many more. He has a couple of good reasons for wanting the work to continue. First, he enjoys it. Second, it pays extremely well. Third and most interestingly, it provides the plots for his novels.
       McCarty is also a world-famous author of a series of best-selling graphically gory action adventure books about a cold-blooded assassin for the CIA named Diego. His picture is on the covers. He attends book signings. He is hoping for a movie or two to come from his stories. He gets away with it because no one can really believe that a man would do all the horrific murders he writes about and then have the temerity to do that writing. He finds their disbelief quite amusing.
       Now, right when we meet him, some things will change. For one, he will show those close to him that he can have feelings, though in his own way. Someone hires him to kill a waitress he has just met and because he liked her and she was a good waitress, he looks into the who and why of the contract and decides against taking it. Then, knowing that someone else will just come along, he takes it upon himself to kill the contractor. Naturally that will spark a lot of trouble but since McCarty is now falling in love with the woman, Rachel, and her precosious daughter, Jean, he is more than willing to take on all those foolish enough to come after them.
       As the series progresses, McCarty and Rachel and Jean and several more who join their group of very unusual people will have a lot of different adventures and McCarty will become very much a CIA go to guy for killing bad guys. All these missions will be quite, um, interesting.

BOOKS

Number of Books:	12
First Appearance:	2013
Last Appearance:	2019

The author has two lengthy action series going at the same time. John Harding with his Monster Squad [the Hard Case series] and Nick McCarty and his Unholy Trio [the Cold Blooded series]. Both series had been going for at least a half dozen novels before he began to join them together in crossover events. This does not mean the two teams become one. Instead, both teams operater on their own as before but sometimes work together on an ad-hoc basis.
According to the author, the sequence of crossover events are:

Hard Case and Cold Blooded Crossover Sequence
1. Hard Case Book 7: Red Waves
2. Cold Blooded Book 6: Red Horizon
3. Hard Case Book 8: Kingdom of Hell
4. Cold Blooded Book 7: Hell on Earth
5. Hard Case 9: Isle of Darkness
6. Cold Blooded 8: Rule of Nightmare
7. Hard Case 10: No Mercy
8. Cold Blooded 9: Bloody Justice
9. Hard Case 11: Killing Field
10. Cold Blooded 10: Hell's Half Acre
11. Hard Case 12: Climate of Chaos
12. Cold Blooded 11: Blood and Honor
13. Hard Case 13: Raging Fury
14. Cold Blooded 12: Paint It Black


1			Witness Protection Written by Bernard Lee DeLeo Copyright: 2013 Cold Blooded #1: Nick McCarty is given the assignment to eliminate Rachel Hunter, a waitress at a diner he frequents. She is in WitSec but someone has learned her whereabouts and wants McCarty to remove her. He decides against it and they and her daughter start a trek across the country to find and eliminate those wanting her gone.

2			Killer Moves Written by Bernard Lee DeLeo Copyright: 2014 Cold Blooded #2: Settling down and giving up his 'other' job is not easy for Nick McCarty but he is making a go of it until his partner asks for help on an overseas assignment. Then his stepdaughter, Jean, asks him to look into her teacher's domestic problem. Lots of mayhem ensues.

3			Sins and Sanctions Written by Bernard Lee DeLeo Copyright: 2014 Cold Blooded #3: Nick McCarty has a new boss for his non-writing career and they seem a good fit. That is lucky because on his latest book tour, the two careers will meet and things go crazy immediately. Good thing his boss does not object too much to bodies lying around.

4			Bloody Shadows Written by Bernard Lee DeLeo Copyright: 2015 Cold Blooded #4: Some powerful but apparently foolish people want to force Nick McCarty to do a job or two for them and when he refuses, they decide he and his family must pay for it. Along with his Unholy Trio, as the CIA Director calls them, McCarty shows them the error of that decision.

5			Nightmares In Red Written by Bernard Lee DeLeo Copyright: 2015 Cold Blooded #5: Even as Nick McCarty tries to wrap up the trouble from the previous adventure, the CIA sends him out to stop ISIS who is planning hits in different parts of the U.S. Along the way he and the Unholy Trio will have to deal with a traitorous Senator among other nasties.

6			Red Horizon Written by Bernard Lee DeLeo Copyright: 2016 Cold Blooded #6: Both ISIS and Al-Qaeda agents approach Nick McCarty, considered the best assassin in the world, to do jobs to help their causes. He refuses both and in turn talks with John Harding to mount a defense against both groups' plans of attacking America.

7			Hell On Earth Written by Bernard Lee DeLeo Copyright: 2017 Cold Blooded #7: Both Nick McCarty's Unholy Trio and John Harding's Monster Squad have their work cut out for them when they join on a couple of assignments. First there is the need to take on terrorist leader Kalil Al-Kazar who is causing a lot of deaths. Then the CIA Diretor asks McCarty to find and save his stepdaughter and grandchild.

8			Rule Of Nightmare Written by Bernard Lee DeLeo Copyright: 2017 Cold Blooded #8: Both Nick McCarty and John Harding and their teams are determined to help the new City of Hope organization battle the extremists in Islam. For that reason, they become the target of those financing the spreading of Sharia Law around the world.

9			Bloody Justice Written by Bernard Lee DeLeo Copyright: 2018 Cold Blooded #9: The shadowy and dangerous Illuminati have two major targets to be eliminated because of their continued interference in the cabal's plans. Nick McCarty and his people as well as John Harding and his group must be destroyed, as must the City of Hope.

10			Hell's Half Acre Written by Bernard Lee DeLeo Copyright: 2018 Cold Blooded #10: To weaken and eventually destroy both John Harding and Nick McCarty, some members of the Illuminati decide to kidnap Harding's daughter, Alice. That was a huge mistake because not only does that get both men and their teams against them, Alice is no pushover, either.

11			Blood and Honor Written by Bernard Lee DeLeo Copyright: 2019 Cold Blooded #11: The influx of illegals into the States from Mexico has gotten so bad that Nick McCarty and his Unholy Trio are asked to lend a hand. They will find that a major cartel has put together a hit team, financed in part by American politicians, to destroy them. John Harding decides helping McCarty is in order.

12			Paint It Black Written by Bernard Lee DeLeo Copyright: 2019 Cold Blooded #12: The New World Order is active again, causing trouble in numerous American cities and forcing Nick McCarty and John Harding to pit their teams against those of the NWO. This will include McCarty asking a high rank Mafioso for some help.

MY COMMENTS

       The part of the opening line above about being cold-blooded is so especially true concerning Nick McCarty that it probably should be in bold and italics. The man could write a text book on being cold-blooded. In a way, of course, being a well read adventure novelist in his 'fake' life writing about a cold-blooded assassin, in a way he is doing just that.
       These stories are absolutely, positively, most definitely not to be believed. Not a bit. But BOY are they fun to read. Everyone is so over the top they are terrific hoots to read. Of course, if, like in his fictional books that McCarty is said to have written, these are about a real killer out there, well, my bad!
       There is a lot of guilty pleasure to take from having read all of the books in the series so far. I gleefully accept any opprobrium that is coming to me. And I will keep reading them, too.

GRADE

My Grade: B

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