The Beasts of Juarez

Atlas Hargrove, Book 2

By: R.B. Schow

Narrated by: James Way

Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

A family is stolen in broad daylight…and trafficked over the border into Mexico. Can Atlas and the team survive Juárez long enough to save them?

A midnight call has Leopold scrambling to gather and deploy his available assets. But there is a high-stakes game being played, one at the highest and most dangerous levels of government.

The members of Leopold’s original team—Cira, Estella, and Yergha—quickly find themselves in over their heads, prompting Leopold to summon Kiera, and then to fetch his wild card: Atlas Hargrove.

This caged lion is itching for a new job, something to bring him closer to finding his daughter. With his enemies stacking up and the warden no longer offering his protection, Atlas will jump out of one nightmare into another.

Juárez has never looked so good…

Chock full of suspense, gritty-dirty action, a dash of humor, and characters you love and would want to know in real life, this edge-of-your-seat vigilante justice thriller will have you listening long into the night!

©2021 R.B. Schow (P)2022 Podium Audio

Just as good as the first book

This is definitely a good series to read. The characters and action are great the the way it is read is exceptional.

Once again a promising series makes a wrong turn

So I had some hope for this series. It’s brutal and at times hard to listen to. The bad guys are the worst of the worst and the author gives lots of details of what they do. He does not pull any punches. But then they get the brutal justice they deserve and that is satisfying.

I thought that since the team was already assembled it would get to the point faster than the first. Nope. You start over with Atlas in prison and getting him out is a whole ordeal again. 75% of the book is getting everything in place, team together, etc.

Additionally, 80% of the book is POV’s not-Atlas. 1/3 if not more are the victims , which is nauseating, 1/3 is is the bad guys, which is enraging, and 1/3 is the good guys but still not satisfying bc they are all still getting their sh!# together and they haven’t done anything good. In fact the author seems to go out of his way to make them pathetic.
With less than 3 hrs to go you finally get to the action-justice part that I, personally, think is the point of the whole thing. At least that’s what is advertised.

The way I sum it up is: “innocent people are victimized by despicable people while the unsympathetic good guys assemble and eventually get around to trying to rescue them.”

I spend 80% of the book either disgusted or angry. That’s not why I listen to these books. I want the good guys to win, and I want to feel good about it.
I finally had to listen to the vast majority of it at extremely accelerated speed just to get through it to either Atlas POV or the very end-slightly more satisfying part.

needs trigger warnings

great book!! realistic scenes. realistic characters and action. great read. hard to put down, but does need TW for violence against women and children.

Bad people doing bad things or...

Atlas isn't that PG-13 guy in the movie that everybody is rooting for to beat the bad guy, save the girl and accomplish the mission all the while taking the high road along the way. No, thats not Atlas Hargrove. When Atlas takes the high road, it's because he has a machine gun nest up on the moral high ground and he's going to kill all those MF'ers because they simply need killing. He's the guy in the 'R' rated movie who is going to kick in doors, get into car chases, bloody fist fights, brutal gun battles, blow stuff up and he will kick a bad guy in the yolk sack, break their knees so they feel their own kind of evil and then shoot them in the face on his way out. Atlas and the crew he works with are the Good People doing Bad Things to Bad People. R. B. Schow pulls no punches in this excellent series, and he has created characters that you come to care about in spite of, and because of their past, present and highly anticipated future actions. James Way does a five star worthy job of narration giving these characters and their world life.

Good story line - weak characters

This book seems like it wants to be a Vince Flynn or a Greg Hurwitz novel, but it’s not. The author seems to go through the motions but I found it hard to develop a connection with the characters. The overall story-line is good. But it’s hard to stay connected when you don’t develop a strong connection with the characters.