Striker V: In Memory

Striker, Book 3

By: Josh Vidmar

Narrated by: Patrick Boylan

Memory is a funny thing. Chances are that you can’t recall what you had for lunch two days ago, but can remember with startling clarity that super embarrassing incident from high school. You know the one.

Having been a superhero all his life, Neil Harris, the illustrious Striker, does not remember every fight and battle. When the strange, dangerous, and unexpected is routine, it all blends together. Then one incident leaves him unable to remember anything about it at all.

For Neil’s husband, Evan Hill, the past is something he actively tries to forget. Decades after escaping his abusive childhood home, that past calls to him, demanding his attention one last time.

As their lives twist and turn in a chaotic moment, one question presents itself for our heroes: How do you want to be remembered?"

©2020 Josh Vidmar (P)2022 Josh Vidmar

The best in the series

I’ve listened to all three Striker books & while my personal favorite is the vignette collection of book 2, I think book 3 is the strongest of Vidmar’s published work.

Without providing spoilers, the over arching themes of this work are death & memory—both memories of the dead as well as memories of those who pass through our lives & who we may forget.

While Vidmar explores memory and loss of memory through a variety of different characters, his most interesting way od doing so is via a fascinating thought experiment--a superpowered individual whose power is to make people forget that they were ever there.

While the humor and charm of the previous two books is still here in spades, this is by far the most thematically rewarding and I would suspect for many this could end up being their favorite in the series.

Patrick Boylan continues to be superb narrator providing distinct cadences and tones to almost of the characters & it's actually rather fun to hear him voice Colonel Ray again after she was primarily voiced by Adrianna Gentile in book two. The fact that Gentile is not Boylan's reading companion like she was for the second audiobook is rather unfortunate, but Boylan is capable of carrying the cast on his own (just as he did soo with Book I).

Just Fantastic

This series is so enjoyable from the opening pages to the finish. Each book I’ve read so far has just absolutely jumped off of the page and honestly, Vidmar’s writing is getting better and better. I think that comes with book three we really know who these characters are and instead of telling us who they are, Vidmar is able to just focus on the story. Along with giving us an even more in-depth look at who each person is and what makes them tick.

I was reminded in the very beginning of In Memory of just how much of a burden being a Super is. Striker has a life and his husband Evan and he just wants to live a normal “happily ever after” but even mundane things like grocery shopping can strike up new threats or new issues. The memory aspect of this one… wow, just wow. Vidmar was able to include some graphic and interesting things in here under the guise of memories – but yeah… there were some dark parts of it.

But I mention that because it just helped me see who these characters were and what their complex back stories were without spending multiple books going through it like therapy sessions.

In Memory (also a GREAT title), as I said above, might be the best book in this series. Vidmar really hit his stride here. He was able to write these intense scenes with lots of great fighting, dialogue, and over-the-top humor. Mixing these together into the Striker V books, this one especially.

And once I add in the performance by Patrick Boylan and it was such a great story from beginning to end. Performed perfectly by Boylan. I actually felt like Boylan was just retelling things that happened to him, not reading a story to me.