Reviews
Review #1: Review by Jamie Michele
Reviewed by:
Jamie Michele
Review Rating:
5 Stars - Congratulations on your 5-star review! Get your free 5-star seal!
Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers’ Favorite
Scott Franz’s Patriots of the King’s Table is set in a 2034 United States controlled by an authoritarian regime, where former outdoorsman Nick Ehrlich becomes the last surviving courier for a secret archive exposing decades of coordinated political manipulation inside the American government. After longtime friends Arty Mesner and Shawn Reynolds are murdered during a covert meeting, Nick escapes into the Appalachian wilderness carrying the Document they died protecting. Regime commander Rolf Visser launches a nationwide manhunt because the papers allegedly prove that manufactured national emergencies allowed powerful officials to dismantle constitutional freedoms over thirty-three years. While hiding in remote mountain territory, Nick encounters environmental scientist Gwen Walker, whose accidental involvement places her directly in the regime’s path. Their journey changes from simple survival into an effort to take the Document across the Canadian border before Visser captures them. Every death, ambush, betrayal, and sacrifice is linked to that single mission.
Scott Franz’s Patriots of the King’s Table is a brilliant American pursuit story, and the author is masterful in piling on the thrills, whether it is a fist-pump moment of destroying a military helicopter with an RPG launcher or hiding inside a transport trailer loaded with frozen beef carcasses. Nick is a fully fleshed out and likeable character. Under extreme circumstances, his humanity and decency are never stripped away, especially toward people risking their lives to help him. Franz gives ancillary characters equal treatment, and I love retired marine officer James Bergman and his calm generosity, arranging multi-state transport through Patriot resistance contacts. The landscapes and settings are utterly cinematic, from the wilderness refuge of King’s Table and its twin waterfalls and enormous limestone cliffs, to a Minneapolis resistance bunker where fugitives survive in constant fear of surveillance patrols. Readers who adore wilderness survival fiction, anti-authoritarian thrillers, armed resistance stories, and fugitive pursuits across rural America will like this book. Very highly recommended.