Once Dead

Written by Richard Phillips

Jack Gregory, the CIA’s top assassin, bleeds out on a Calcutta operating table and is about to die.

But an alien entity has other plans for him.

If Jack is willing to act as a human host for this dark figure, he lives. Jack takes the deal. One year later, he is known internationally as The Ripper, fixer for hire, and finds himself increasingly drawn to dire, world-shattering events. Suffering strange premonitions and compulsions, Jack has more questions than answers. What destiny does this alien mind foresee? Why has it chosen him?

From bestselling author Richard Phillips comes a globe-spanning sci-fi thriller series with a twist...culminating in the cataclysmic events that set the stage for the Rho Agenda.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Aug 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491525401

Richard Phillips

Richard Phillips was born in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1956. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1979 and qualified as a US Army Ranger, going on to serve as an officer in the army. He earned a master’s degree in physics from the Naval Postgraduate School in 1989, completing his thesis work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. After working as a research associate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, he returned to the army to complete his tour of duty. Richard is the author of several science fiction and fantasy series, including The Rho Agenda (The Second Ship, Immune, and Wormhole); The Rho Agenda Inception (Once Dead, Dead Wrong, and Dead Shift); The Rho Agenda Assimilation (The Kasari Nexus, The Altreian Enigma, and The Meridian Ascent); and Mark of Fire, Prophecy’s Daughter, Curse of the Chosen, and The Shattered Trident in the epic Endarian Prophecy series. Richard lives with his wife, Carol, in Phoenix, Arizona. For more information, visit www.rhoagenda.com.

Reviews for Once Dead

[crazybatcow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There is a bit of a ... disconnect... here... the story is a realistic action novel but the underlying premise is supernatural, with just a hint of horror. I liked it, but I can see how it doesn't fit clearly into a specific genre. And the "writeups" seem to focus on the "history of villians" as if that were a central theme in this novel - it is not. There are, of course, periodic (and, actually, mainly unnecessary) side tracks into the heads of various historical "bad guys". I didn't find any of these side tracks added anything to the story, and were all too short to be of much interest on their own... not sure why they were included because the story is pretty good and action filled without the author having to use the historical "Jack the Ripper" persona to capture our interest.As an action-thriller, it's a good 4.5 star. Its supernatural component is weak and drags the book down a half star. The characters are interesting and the females aren't completely useless, nor are they exclusively there as sex interests. I did buy the next in the series.