A #CrimeFicFridays Book Review | “The Auctioneer” (Chase Hardeman series, Book One) by D.J. Williams [this #newtomeauthor gave me an #unputdownable Thriller to devour!]

Acquired Book By: This Summer, I’ve been contacted by a variety of different authors and publicists about stories in different genres of interest to find out if I might be keen on reading their stories. This particular author was pitching to me his latest release which is the second novel in the Chase Hardeman series “King of the Night”. However, as those of you will readily recognise who have visited with me over the years – I prefer to read series from the beginning rather than opt instead to read a sequel or another installment. Thereby, I asked if I could read the first novel alongside the sequel which is releasing in September, 2024. Thankfully he agreed and that is how I received both novels for review consideration rather than just one. 

I received a complimentary copy of “The Auctioneer” direct from the author D.J. Williams in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

On Jorie’s return to reading Contemporary Thrillers:

It has been a very long time since I’ve read a Contemporary Thriller – as I was listening to each installment of two different series quite regularly until I reached a point, I had to take a break from listening to the Kay Hunter series (see this last Audiobook Review). It is my goal to pick up the threads of that particular series and carry-on with it. I am grateful to have learnt all the stories are available to listen to via Everand (which is the new website for Scribd) except for the short story in the series which I believe never went to audio. Aside from this series, I was also enjoying listening to the Tara Thorpe series by Clare Chase (see also this Audiobook Review) as she is another Contemporary writer I enjoy listening vs reading in print. Ironically or not, I hadn’t realised I haven’t been reading Thrillers since the pandemic began!

As previously disclosed (via this Post) I am starting to make my return to reading Thrillers and stories of Suspense this latter half of Summer. I have always enjoyed a wicked good Thriller or novel of Suspense especially it is writ well and not only holds my attention to the action and the drama behind the lead or supporting characters but if it is written in such a way as to keep me feverishly engaged and on the edge of my seat but without turning too gruesome or grisly with the depictions of violence. Some authors push the envelope for me in that respect and others, know exactly how to balance it all to where the enjoyment for me as a reader (or listener) is quite high indeed.

When I read about this particular series by Mr Williams, I knew I wanted to take a chance on reading it because it was something completely different than what I was thinking I’d want to be reading this Summer. As most of my readerly focus was on Romances, Romantic Suspense and Children’s Lit in respect to Middle Grade and YA novels of interest. Thereby, as I was looking over the information online about this series, I thought – wells, it has definitely been a long bit of time since I’ve taken a chance on something like that! And, why not? It felt like it would be a good fit for me and if anything, I love adrenaline rushing narratives which keep you on your toes and guessing each time you turn the pages! 

Not to mention the fact I tend to watch more films of this nature than I do read a novel within the same genre – unsure when that particular tendency started to happen, but it is my intention to get back into reading and listening to these stories and not just rely on the films to entertain me! And, so, this marks my return and hopefully I can read more stories by other authors writing books in the same vein of interest as this series, too. Those authors include Clare Chase, Rachel Amphlett and J.S. Monroe (see also Review).

The Auctioneer
Subtitle: Introducing Chase Hardeman
by D.J. Williams
Source: Direct from Author

Chase Hardeman, a former special ops veteran, is left questioning whether his past covert missions in the Middle East are the cause of the chaos that's erupted in his life. Dreams of leaving a clandestine war behind and becoming a legend like his father in the auction arena teeter on the brink once he implements a contingency plan amidst an FBI investigation. Captivated by an old flame, Chase navigates the dark corridors of the collector car world in search of a myth. He believes finding this hidden treasure will reveal answers to a ghost buried in the desert of Mosul known to US intelligence as the Prodigal. On this perilous quest, Chase is drawn closer to a deadly threat as he leverages the criminal underworld to prevent a global terrorist attack. With the clock ticking, Chase is forced to relive the past in an imminent showdown and discovers the truth is not as it seems.

With echoes of Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne and Lee Child's Jack Reacher, D.J. Williams' Chase Hardeman series is thrilling and action-packed, keeping you on the edge of your seat. Fans of espionage and military thrillers will love this fast-paced story that takes readers from the deserts of the Middle East to the high-stakes world of international auctions.

Genres: Contemporary (Modern) Fiction (post 1945), Crime Fiction, Thriller

Places to find the book:

Borrow from a Public Library

ISBN: 9780578427775

on 25th February, 2019

Format: Paperback Edition

Pages: 450

The Chase Hardeman Thriller series:

The Auctioneer (Book One)

King of the Night (Book Two)

→ *NEW release 9th September, 2024

Published By: Forgotten Stories, LLC

Converse via: #ContemporaryThriller as well as #ChaseHardemanSeries

Available Formats: Trade paperback and Ebook

on the opening note from the author:

I was quite taken by the conversational tone the opening note from the author gave us to the read. Especially as it was both insightful and inspiring. I was happy to note he is giving out portions of the sale of The Auctioneer to the Wounded Warrier Project as this is one charity I have oft felt isn’t as highlighted as others to support. I enjoy supporting them myself whenever I am able too. I am not sure if that is for the life of the book or was just at time of release, but it was a lovely gesture I felt by an author. I was also taken by how he was hoping others are encouraged to seek out the kind of friends who can go along the path of life wherever it takes you. I think that is an ideal we all strive to seek out and to find, even if we tend to fall short. It was one of the more enjoyable authors’ acknowledgements I’ve read in a long while.

my review of the auctioneer:

The opening passage definitely jolts you as anyone who has flown has a healthy fear of what could happen to a plane whilst you’re in flight. Williams captured the fear, the terror and the realisation of what is actually happening in that moment – suspended between life and death quite brilliantly.  From there, we are on a fast-moving train to assert ourselves into Chase Hardeman’s life – as an auctioneer and as the sole heir of his father’s legacy. Their business is a bit unique and different than most family-run companies as they are into high stakes auctions and sell rare, hard to find and priceless items of interest for those who only have money to burn. I appreciated the pace of the story but also the internally conflicted Chase who’s still reeling in grief from having lost his father in such a difficult way. He felt the torch being passed to him so to speak but questioned whether or not he was ready to take the reins of their family company. If I were him, I might have questioned it too given the line of business they were in and the clients they dealt with on the regular.

Chase is not just between a rock and a hard place, but he’s convinced he’s in love despite the chaos he has to muddle through in order to survive the reality of having his world turnt upside down. For readers who loved Gone in Sixty Seconds – this has a plot line which might appeal to them. Especially if you consider all the sweet cars Chase is attempting to auction before his hourglass runs dry to escape. He’s ready to cut and run but there are complications he wasn’t expecting to unearth – such as the deep connections his father had to the authorities and how his father was trying to sleuth out the truth for them. You gathered Chase was an inferno of emotion – he wanted to seek vengeance against what happened to his Dad but how to do that when you didn’t even fully understand the dangers your father was facing?

The whole operations of the auction house read like a script from an action-packed film – especially how they kept a catalogue of cars and an inventory of clients at the ready. I wasn’t surprised Laney wasn’t sure if she had what it would take to go with Chase – to just leave everything behind and chase the sunset. It was a credit to Chase to trust her and see if she had enough moxie to handle what came next but part of me worried, he might have taken too much of a risk. There was something about Laney I couldn’t quite sort out until it was revealled by Williams. In the blink of an eye, Chase loses far more than his father – he loses his found family, his assets and his way of life. He becomes a man on the run with a hardened soul and a thirst to resolve the wrongs against him. You can see how the recent events fuelled his anger and irked his ire, but it was more than that – someone was taking too much away from him all at once.

Right when we were plunged into the extraordinary life of Chase as the auctioneer we had to brace ourselves for a swift and hard swing of events which would uproot him from his role in his father’s company. Shifting perspectives between Chase and Laney (of whom is not all she first seemed) as they now walk different paths and on a collision trajectory.  Chase has a lot of dimensions to him as well – whilst Williams also hints towards him having PTSD, which translates through his insomnia and the moments he spent in service which still haunt him. Yet, the most extraordinary part of the story – is how quickly you can feel isolated and alone when someone from the past comes back to wreck chaos and havoc on your life. Williams stacks the deck against Chase from different angles of interest and suspense – cluing you into things you need to know when you need to know them whilst giving you enough lead to sort out a few details for yourself or await the revealls as his characters learn more truth about their situations, too. I loved that about the style of the narrative because it made it feel ever more real and alarmingly quick-witted.

If you look at it from the authorities POV, their chasing after someone who holds the key to understanding the conspiracies and cover-ups from service in the Middle East and how it co-relates to things happening stateside. Whilst they pursue their investigation, you can peel back some of their interests to see they are using Chase as a steppingstone to reach past him and his fathers’ affairs to corner off someone else entirely different. It is very much a game of chess – it just depends on who will reach checkmate first and who will have moves left which aren’t even on the gameboard. Which of course in the end will determine the ultimate outcome for everyone involved. And that is what I loved about The Auctioneer. Williams also writes brilliantly the internal world of his characters – from Chase to Laney and Elena. Elena was an interesting character straight out of the gate because of her loyalties to both her own family and to Chase directly. As they might not have even crossed paths if their lives hadn’t taken the paths, they had which put them together. Elena is one of those smart women who doesn’t reveall all her cards either – she holds things back and she has a lot of irons in the fire all at once which keeps her interesting to the reader.

Recently I started watching the Fast and Furious franchise and there is a scene in The Auctioneer which made me smirk due to how a wicked good car chase is still a wicked good choice to include in a high stakes story such as the one Williams has given us to devour. It was another nod at how Williams visually set the pace of the story, too. Whilst at the same time, the more you peel back the layers of Chase’s past with his service in the military abroad, the more you can see how that part of his life is bleeding into his present and causing more than one avenue of close and personal danger. Your heart is lodged in your throat at different intervals, too, especially when you see the collateral damage inflicted by persons who only wish harm to others. Whilst at the same time, I appreciated how Williams kept a taut tether on the drama and emotions – he gave us characters who were inherently flawed in different ways but also, who led with their hearts and not always their minds. This was especially true of Laney – who I felt was a woman in the middle of her own insurrection against her conscience and soul. She was a complicated character and the more she was in scene, the more you wanted to spend time with her to see how she was going to sort out her life but also, the evolving pickle of conflicted interests she was surrounding herself inside in the here and now.

Nothing is cut and dry either – not from the loyalties you feel you can rely on in your life or the normalcy you deluded yourself into believing was your truer reality – at least, this is how I felt Chase was feeling himself even before the midway point of the novel. He truly had to dig deeper into his own heart and mind, to root out who and whom he would trust shifting forward and what was most important to him. To seek vengeance on behalf of his father’s death or was there something much more urgent and important which needed to be addressed first on a wider scale of the cost of other people’s ill intentions? The closer we draw to Chase the more we realise how conflicted he is internally and how much he wants to live a simpler life where he wasn’t constantly having to run for his life or live in fear of dangers not yet known or seen.

The intricate threads of this narrative rely on an explosive plot twisting into a climax the reader isn’t even prepared to see revealled. Williams has written a very powerful and suspenseful labyrinth of a story set in our modern world and politically charged against the backdrop of our contemporary histories of war and terror. Therein he wrote a scheme of plot which involves a deep thread of conspiracies and subterfuge. As you align yourself in step with Chase, you feel his emotional angst and anguish as his entire life is peeled away to see the fractions of truth against a backwall of protection he wasn’t even aware of existing. His father was a more complicated man than he realised and it was through his connections to power and influence which kept Chase alive as long as he had. Their world of auctions was only the tip of the iceberg as they were into so much more than the items they auctioned. At one point, you felt bad for Chase because he lived his life understanding it from his point of view only to have that shattered and realised his life wasn’t quite lived as a person who chose his own path but rather had become a pawn in someone else’s plans.

As the layers are peeled back as you would an onion, Williams gives the reader clues into what is truly going on behind the story itself and that is even more chilling than the one we thought he was leading us to see alongside Chase and Laney. Even the dark web plays a role in this novel as part of what is happening in-line with the investigations is also taking place in the darker markets where anyone can manipulate leverage for what they want to acquire. Emotionally I was overtaken by the tragedies and complexities of the love triangle he wrote between Chase, Laney and Elena. Their stories were threading behind the narrative and were ever present during the chaos of the here and now. Life and love are complicated in of themselves but as Williams proved in this kind of a setting and evolving storyline – the cruel reality is love has no place to root and grow into something which can be maintained. And that was one of the more sombering parts of the story for me.

My heart was so attached to this story start to finish – from the cinematic scope of Williams vision of it – to the deeply threaded multiple POVs and the intensity of the suspense! I truly was hugged so deeply into the core of Chase’s journey I found it hard to put down even for a second! What gave me a breath of hope is having the sequel close at hand to devour next – as there was a window of opportunity outlined in the final chapters of The Auctioneer which offers a blueprint of where the series will be taken hereafter and I’m ready for it! For me, one of the sweetest rewards of this journey was what was lying in wait and hiding overseas – I admit, I smirked because I had a feeling Michael Hardeman had one final card up his sleeve and Williams didn’t disappoint! As you chase the clues and follow the leads – you’ll be quite surprised at how eloquently Williams encased us in a scenario of a plot which clarifies the point of ‘the enemy within’ and the lengths of what some will dare to do in order to protect life and liberty. This is a novel which pins itself squarely in a timely Contemporary Thriller timecard whilst endevouring the reader to expound their knowledge of the cutthroat underworld and darker portions of the web.

Chase Hardeman is an unexpected hero caught in the midst of a conspiracy and undertakes a high web of deceit and transgression against everything he holds dear. To pursue him on this cat and mouse chase was a pleasure of a read because of how Williams delivered such an incredible story beset with characters of whom you find yourself compelled to see come out victorious even if some of them are morally grey and not entirely on the side of the law. He paints the grey areas well in this series and gives the reader plenty of fodder to chew on whilst bringing us close and personal to the dangers near and wide. I cannot wait to see where we find Chase in the sequel King of the Night and follow in his footsteps as he goes after the next person of interest Williams has conceived to be his next villain to pursue. This is the kind of Contemporary Thriller which happily keeps you awake at night, contemplating the revelations within and attempting to sleuth out the breadcrumbs Williams leaves behind as an attempt to stay ahead of the game, too. It is the best kind of Thriller to become lost inside and that is a credit to Williams who knows how to write a compelling drama with thrilling suspense!

on the contemporary thriller styling of d.j. williams:

I must say, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first started reading The Auctioneer and what I found inside was such a cunning style of narrative! I loved how Williams pulls you into the web of high stakes auctions – where anyone familiar with traditional auctions knows there is also a more elite version of these public auctions where the invites are exclusive and limited. To be propelled into that world of auctions was quite an astute transition by Williams as he anchoured us so readily into that world through Chase Hardeman’s eyes and life; it felt as if we were returning rather than just visiting for the first time. Or perhaps my own journeys into that kind of world and this style of story have kept up with the momentum of where we alight in this series. Either way, it was a wicked opening bridge into where we find ourselves in the series.

In a similar vein of Sherlock Holmes, Williams gave Chase a bolt hole in which he was able to take what he needed and get on with his plans at one point in the storyline. Which clued me into how Williams pulls from different influences within fiction and film as I noted certain similarities to different references as I was reading the story. Some were very subtle and others, felt very akin to other stories or characters but with a wholly different plot or direction in which to take the storyline. I loved the thrill of the tone of The Auctioneer as usually speaking when I read Contemporary Thrillers or Suspense, there are quite a healthy heaping of strong language threading throughout the context of the stories. Not all the authors I read do this, but some do – which is why when I find the authors who don’t I get even more giddy as it makes a more enjoyable read for me as a reader not to always expect those words just to ‘pop’ up along the route of the story. I’d rather read a story like this one than one that is peppered too heavily in vulgarity in other words. Williams proves you can write a chillingly psychological Thriller without having to rely on heavier language to convey your message.

Willilams holds back some of the information he wants the reader to wait to find revealled, too. I recognised that early-on as some of the information Chase was receiving himself was blind to the reader and some of the intel he understood as it affected him was also hidden from our view too. Some of that made this novel feel like we were stepping through a portal already visited in another prequel story and we were simply picking up the threads after that ‘other story’ had concluded. Yet, I realised he hadn’t meant for it to feel like that – not necessarily anyway, as I’m sure it wasn’t planned to feel that way, but in some respects, you do feel as if you’ve ‘missed’ a critical part of Chase’s story ahead of where we entered it in this installment of the series. I was curious if there was a prequel – written or in notes or drafts which simply wasn’t published but used for the authors’ own working timeline of the series.

One of the things which impressed me the most was the introspective nature of Chase and how he strove to sort out the chaos left behind in the wake of his father’s death. Williams writes so much depth into Chase – you feel emotionally tethered to him quite immediately as you begin to read the novel. This carries through the story and allows you to feel not just connected to Chase and his emotions but to his conscience and his thoughts, too. He is a complex character in some respects and the kind of character despite the odds against him you truly want to see rise through the ashes of his life and emerge out of them with a renewal of life and hope and opportunity. A credit to Williams and how he portrayed him start to finish.

A note on content:

Having already revealled I have listened to most of the Kay Hunter Detective stories – you’ll know I have an upper tier of tolerance for certain stories in this particular genre of interest and then, of course, happily prefer stories which are a lot less violent or descriptive as say an episode of NCIS (old school and OG gang when Abbie and Gibbs were still there). Not sure how I hung on to see that series (or following after NCIS: LA and NCIS: NOLA either) – except to say, it had more to do with the characters than the crimes. Whereas I had to depart NCIS: Hawaii after Y1 as they just derailed the storylines. My point here is there are a few notes on the content I thought I should mention given the nature of this story and the journey we take with Chase.

→ The first moment which surprised me, and I barely blinked because I think I was more in awed shock than anything was during an interview scene of a detained criminal. Let’s just say the interviewer pushes the boundaries of the law and does something to evoke a response (verbal) from the person. Thankfully it could have been more graphic and gruesome, but it wasn’t, and the scene quickly moved on. This involved blunt force trauma for those who might be sensitive to those scenes.

→ Explores the effects of PTSD and transitioning to civilian life after serving in the military

→ The interrogation scenes do involve forms of torture when suspects are questioned, however. Williams does pull back and doesn’t make them more than they could have been. I appreciated his restraint. He shows his restraint again lateron in the story when there is an explosion – where it could have turnt gritty and gruesome, but he withheld it from becoming that way and again, I applauded that choice.

This book review is courtesy of:
the author D.J. Williams

This review will be cross-posted to LibraryThing.

{SOURCES: Book covers for “The Auctioneer” and “King of the Night”, book synopsises, author photo and biography are used with permission of the author D.J. Williams. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. LibraryThing banner provided by librarything.com and used with permission. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: #CrimeFicFridays banner and the Comment Box Banner.}

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2024.

I’m a social reader | I share my readerly life on #bookstagram and BlueSky

I’m #currentlyreading a wicked good Contemporary #Thriller by DJ Williams (“The Auctioneer”) wherein I am loving the edge of your seat pace and the introspective nature of his lead character who’s striving to sort out the chaos left in the wake of his father’s death. #bookbloggers #amreading

— Jorie Story (@joriestory.bsky.social) Sep 8, 2024 at 1:39 PM

Finished #amreading “The Auctioneer” by DJ Williams and will share my #bookreview Friday during my showcase for #CrimeFicFridays (a feature of #JLASblog). Can’t wait to share with you why: I truly was hugged so deeply into the core of Chase’s journey I found it hard to put down even for a second!

— Jorie Story (@joriestory.bsky.social) Sep 11, 2024 at 12:03 AM