Most unique assassin I’ve read. You’re not really sure… about anything as he surprises and re-surprises with every page turn. Framing God for a murder? It’s all part of the deal - kill and blame someone else. Interesting idea.

Now this is an interesting premise.

Michael Harrier (with any number of aliases) is a gun for hire. Quite good at it. The book opens

up with him in sniper mode in Africa. A squad of big game hunters have teamed up with

poachers to do some hunting off the books, off the reservation. Endangered? Who cares.

Harrier lines the poachers and the hunters up in his sights and picks them off one-by-one,

leaving one survivor (on purpose). For a healthy paycheck. From whom? He doesn’t care. Did

his research, took the job, killed the targets, left the survivor who will eventually get blamed for

the carnage.

Part 1:

You see, Harrier’s corner of the hired assassin market is that he only takes jobs where he is

supplied with two names: the TV (target victim) and the SV (surviving victim). The TV is

obvious. The SV is who gets framed for the murder.

Harrier’s next job (for which he’ll get $3 million) seems like an impossible task. Kill a known (but

never ‘convicted’) pedophile priest (the TV) and blame God (the SV) for the priest’s untimely

death. He’s been hired by a father whose adult son was repeatedly abused by the priest when

his son was serving as the parrish alter boy years earlier, but the assaults were never proven

by the police or the Catholic church despite intense investigations.

That’s the setup. Killing the priest is a chinch. Framing God is an altogether more difficult

assignment. Harrier investigates the priest and studies how death is portrayed in the Bible.

After considerable research into Old and New Testament descriptions, he comes up with a

plan. A plan that leaves virtually no possible clues that God, not a man, killed the priest.

Once he puts his plan into play, Harrier has to confront the priest first. The interaction between

Harrier and the priest as the scene is set up is a wonderful exchange of not necessarily good

and evil, they both are evil, but of how the plan was developed from both a practical and

religious perspective.

Part 2:

The next stage of any plan like this is to get away with it. Once the first part of the assignment

is completed (the first half of the book), the priest is dead and the media is swarming like flies

on manure, the police assign Jordan Becker, their most experienced detective, who also is just

digging out from under an internal affairs investigation, to unravel this complex case.

Taking down the killer and making sense of the God angle could just be Becker’s own chance

at redemption in his own life and work. There are sparse clues to speak of and what he finds

upends each succeeding step. Every inch forward sends Becker back well past where he

began. More than once, Becker begins to believe that he has met his match in this priest killer.

As so often happens, when an investigation continues to fail, the only way to capture the killer

is to get down in the sewer of darkness where such targets exist.

Some premise, right? The author takes us on a roller coaster ride where good and evil exist in

tandem. Is there a ‘winner’ here? Lessons to be learned? Characters that may be part of an

ongoing series?

Probably not,

Despite the lack of a clear good guy/bad guy. There’s no black and white, only gray. Lots of

gray. But there is one clear winner: the reader who picks up this book.

Thanks to Tuddy Press and Netgalley for this outstanding eARC.

Only occasionally are we honored with reading an outstanding, riveting and breathtaking novel - Birds of Prey Don't Sing is one of those rare special books.

I looked for other books by this author but I was unsuccessful: if this is a debut book by Joe Cary then it makes the triumph even more outstanding; regardless consider Joe Cary as author "to watch", personally, I think this is a riveting read. Birds of Prey don't sing captivated me every bit as much as Thomas Harris's Silence of the Lambs, it is THAT good.

If you are a fan of police procedurals and / or mysteries in general, don't miss reading this 5 star book.

Now on to my detailed review:

Birds of Prey Don’t Sing is one of those rare novels that feels both razor‑sharp yet unexpectedly tender, it a story that sneaks up on you with its emotional intelligence even as it keeps your pulse elevated. Joe Cary writes with the confidence of someone who knows exactly what he wants a reader to feel—then delivers it with precision, wit, and a surprising amount of heart.

This book is a study in tension: between truth and illusion, loyalty and self‑preservation, the stories we tell and the ones we bury. Cary builds this world with a cinematic clarity, but what makes the novel soar is the psychological depth he gives his characters. Every choice feels earned, every secret has weight, and every twist lands with the satisfying inevitability of a trap snapping shut.

The pacing is a standout. Cary moves with the agility of a thriller writer yet he never sacrifices nuance. He gives you just enough information to stay oriented, then pulls the rug at exactly the right moment. It’s the kind of book where you think you’re reading one story, only to realize—deliciously—that you’ve been reading another all along.

What elevates the novel even further is Cary’s prose. It’s clean, confident, and quietly lyrical, the kind of writing that doesn’t call attention to itself but leaves a lingering echo. He has a gift for the single, devastating line that reframes an entire chapter.

By the final pages, Birds of Prey Don’t Sing becomes more than a thriller; it becomes a meditation on the cost of silence and the courage it takes to break it. It’s gripping, atmospheric, and emotionally resonant in a way that stays with you long after the last sentence.

Birds of Prey don't Sing is a stellar standout of an achievement, it is smart, suspenseful, and beautifully crafted, and personally I cannot wait to read Joe Cary's next offering.

This fir me was a wow read. It is a gripping thriller I was hooked on from start to finish.

It follows a skilled but haunted assassin navigating a high-stakes job, tangled romance, and constant danger in Los Angeles.

The plot twists come fast, the pacing is relentless, and the characters feel refreshingly real.

It is an absorbing read with a brutally shocking ending, and is a solid, edge-of-your-seat read that keeps on coming.

I loved it

MURDER the pedophilic priest, PIN the blame on God, MOVE on to the next job, the usual.

Just another Sunday for our morally grey, self righteous, too proud, I’m too good at my job (he really is though) anti-hero Micheal Harrier (lo and behold, another of his aliases), an assassin that goes by the nickname Apropos, whose style is sort of a kill two birds with one stone kind.

Take out one asshole, put the blame on another.

He has his principles, he targets only the bad guys and he is a softie that donates lump sums to wildlife conservation.

And then we’ve got Jordan Becker, a homicide sergeant from LAPD that has to find our Micheal and he does not play by the rules sometimes. But he really is good at what he does as well.

What follows is a series of well crafted mind games, the perfect game of cat and mouse and it’s written in such a way that it’s not too much tell and less show.

Each scene is not shown from both of their POVs, the next chapter starts from where it absolutely has to instead of where the last one left off.

And the thing is, you simply can’t root for one of these characters, it’s either both of them or not.

I feel like a gaping hole in my soul has filled after a very long time. I’ve missed reading non stop and trying to stay up to finish books, and this was perfect. It’s written in such a way that a movie plays out while reading.

But also, can we take a moment to talk about the romance? I believe that romance or even spicy scenes hit so much harder when it’s in books not of the genre. All that tension and slow burn only for it catch on fire for a few moments at some point but those few moments engulf the reader, making them feel all sorts of things. In this case, it’s 1 chapter among 56.

Also the chapter names are interesting as it is. You’ll see.

Author Joe Cary, I do not know who you are and I’ve never heard of you before until this ARC from Netgalley, but consider me a fan and I can definitely see you making it bigger than what you are now. I can’t wait to see this become a hit series.