Following authors is a great passtime and ANS is someone I've admired for many years. He's a class act, that's for certain, and I've loved most of the books I've read of his.

Trooper Down is something of an exception. Perhaps I'm getting old and in need of brighter landscapes these days.

Essentially there are a couple of things that stopped me fully engaging with the novel.

The first is the protagonist. I'm used to unlikeable characters, but this one has no redeemable features. I didn't want to root for him and, in the end, that proved to be problematic for me.

My second issue was with the voice. The story is narrated by the protagonist and, as part of his journey, there's a brain injury caused by a gunshot that means he's not always in tip-top shape. This was always going to make the story-telling complex and ANS has a good stab at it, but for me the self-correction and the tangents just got in the way.

I'll be back for more Smith, there's no doubt about it and I wouldn't deliberately put off anyone from giving this a try- just be warned, it's dark and jolting and a little bit different.

It’s an Anthony Neil Smith novel in its fullest. If you’ve read his stuff you know his stuff and it’s all good stuff.

This was some kind of messed up ride! When I first saw it, I thought it was like a true crime book or something. Being married to a cop for 30 years was one reason I thought it would be interesting. Like a train wreck, it really sucked me in. So terribly bad I was cringing yet something so bad you can't stop looking. There were times I wanted to skip chapters because the guy it's about, Mal, just doesn't know when to shut up, even in his own head. What's left of it. And even that doesn't stop him. Yet, at the end, I think he was saner than me. Anyone in law enforcement probably knows people like him. Well, some parts like him. They aren’t all bad cops. For every bad one, there's a thousand good ones.

Mal more or less lives his life as he is above the law. He has no conscience. Even goes out of his way to look for hot women to stop and intimidate into the back of his car instead of getting a ticket. Which I know the reader is thinking, just take the ticket. This is absurd. But it gets worse. The first chapter is so vile I was thinking I wouldn't read more because it was so crude. I think some readers wouldn't be a dnf if it would've started out with some of the milder things about him. Kind of warming you up. But it's something that needs to be in there to really understand the person. After getting shot in the head, he seems to have at least thought about his life and how he did things. I think he had some regrets idk. There was no fixing him though. Shooting or not. The recovery is long and horrible. But he is paid back slowly for all he has done. Now he just needs to know who shot him and what. Was it the drug cartel he got mixed up with? If he could only stop being a prisoner in his own body and his own home where his wife and inlaws watch him around the clock. But his body doesn't work good on one side and one eye is blind. After all was said and done, in the end, I was blown away, no pun intended. Some stuff I sort of guessed but I never saw most of it coming and certainly not as bad as it did. I actually felt sorry for him.

I’m sorry this review was so long. No matter what I say, it won’t do the book justice. I feel I now have PTSD and will forever be traumatized lol. It was really good. Thanks to NetGalley , the author and publisher for giving me this opportunity.

Having read most, if not all, of Anthony Neil Smith's writings, one thing I can say is that he has a knack for making the most deplorable human beings somehow sympathetic. In TROOPER DOWN!, Mal Braun is an utterly despicable character that, for some unknown reason to me, is the underdog for which I am rooting.

TROOPER DOWN! Is a fast paced Hitchcock style psychological thriller as promised. It is written in very unique style that makes that deplorable character even more sympathetic. Smith has a way of describing the scenery in his works that allows the reader to get an almost immersive feel for the actual atmosphere. After finishing this, I felt like I needed a nice Silkwood shower, a feeling I get after reading Harry Crews. If you know what I mean here, you know. If not, I'm sorry you have yet to experience such visceral writing.

TROOPER DOWN! Is definitely not for the faint at heart, but if you are a fan of Smith, you know what you are getting into when you choose to read on of his works.

I can totally do dark and gritty…but this… This was…obnoxious. All the law enforcement depicted were either idiots or total @##holes. The main character was a despicable pos, but so was basically every other character in the story. Vulgar and outlandish, this was an insult to LEO’s, women, and the reader.