# Read the first page of The Sentinel by Lee Child Read the opening of The Sentinel by Lee Child free, no signup. A drifting ex-military cop walks into a small town's dangerous conspiracy. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/the-sentinel-lee-child - Genre: Thrillers - Year: 2021 - ISBN: 9781984818485 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9781984818485&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9781984818485 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9781984818485 ## The opening Rusty Rutherford emerged from his apartment on a Monday morning, exactly one week after he got fired. He spent the first few days after the ax fell with his blinds drawn, working through his stockpile of frozen pizzas and waiting for the phone to ring. Significant weaknesses, the dismissal letter said. Profound failure of leadership. Basic and fundamental errors. It was unbelievable. Such a distortion of the truth. And so unfair. They were actually trying to pin the town's recent problems on him. It was . . . a mistake. Plain and simple. Which meant it was certain to be corrected. And soon. The hours crawled past. His phone stayed silent. And his personal email silted up with nothing more than spam. He resisted for another full day, then grabbed his old laptop and powered it up. He didn’t own a gun or a knife. He didn’t know how to rappel from a helicopter or parachute from a plane. But still, someone had to pay. Maybe his real-life enemies were going to get away with it. This time. But not the villains in the videogames a developer buddy had sent him. He had shied away from playing them, before. The violence felt too extreme. Too unnecessary. It didn’t feel that way anymore. His days of showing mercy were over. Unless . . . His phone stayed silent. Twenty-four hours later he had a slew of new high scores and a mild case of dehydration, but not much else had changed. He closed the computer and slumped back on his couch. He stayed there for the best part of another day, picking at random from a stack of blu rays he didn’t remember buying and silently begging the universe to send him back to work. He would be different, he swore. Easier to get along with. More patient. Diplomatic. Empathetic, even. He would buy donuts for everyone in the office. Twice a month. Three times, if that would seal the deal . . . His phone stayed silent. He didn’t often drink, but what else was there left to do? The credits began to roll at the end of another disk. He couldn’t stomach another movie so he retreated to the kitchen. Retrieved an unopened bottle of Jim Beam from the back of a cabinet. Returned to the living room and put a scratchy old Elmore James LP on the turntable. He wound up asleep, facedown on the floor, after—he wasn’t sure how long. All he knew was that when he woke up his head felt like it was crammed full of rocks, shifting and grinding as if they were trying to burst out of his skull. He thought the pain would never end. But when his hangover did finally pass he found himself experiencing a new emotion. Defiance. He was an innocent man, after all. None of the bad things that had happened were his fault. That was for damn sure. He was the one who’d foreseen them. Who’d warned his boss about them. Time after time. In public and in private. And who’d been ignored. Time after time. So after seven days holed up alone, Rutherford decided it was time to show his face. To tell his side of the story. To anyone who would listen. ## Books with a similar feel - [Don't You Cry by Mary Kubica](https://uncovered.ink/read/dont-you-cry-mary-kubica.md) - [The Invitation by Lucy Foley](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-invitation-lucy-foley.md) - [The Terminal List by Jack Carr](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-terminal-list-jack-carr.md) - [Hush by James Patterson](https://uncovered.ink/read/hush-james-patterson.md) - [Daylight by David Baldacci](https://uncovered.ink/read/daylight-david-baldacci.md) - [Midnight is the Darkest Hour by Ashley Winstead](https://uncovered.ink/read/midnight-is-the-darkest-hour-ashley-winstead.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.