Time Rider
Time Rider by Rickey R Mallory is set in the present day but has a hero from the future. However we see nothing of the future, other than in the memories of the hero, and so I am placing it in the futuristic section of my site rather than the time travel section.
Kristen Skipworth is a doctor with an unusually strong empathic ability. Having lost her twin brother she has shut herself off from the world and buried herself in her work.
Kristen's life changes beyond all she can imagine when she finds an injured man in an alley on the way home from the clinic. Thinking him just another stray she takes him back to the clinic and tends to his injuries.
Rider Savage is a time traveller on a mission to the past. But his mission starts off badly when he crashes into a brick wall on his entry into the 21st century. Rider thinks that the doctor who has saved him is an angel. It is only when he asked her name he realises that she is the target of his mission.
Rider has been conditioned to be an effective killing machine and he has volunteered for the mission to go back in time and kill the Mother of all the Deviants. He knows it is a one way suicide mission but having lost his wife he does not care if he does not return.
But Rider's mission soon hits a snag when the brainwashing/conditioning begins to break down and he realises that all the memories he had given up to make him a better killer are returning, along with the emotions he had been conditioned not to have.
Kristen cannot believe that the man she has rescued is going to kill her. Her empathic ability shows her that the man is not a psycho and he really believes that he is from the future. But somehow she cannot bring herself to believe that he will kill her. She knows as no other can that he is essentially a good man.
Matters are taken out of Rider's hands however when he realises that someone else has been sent from even further into the future to kill Kristen. Battling against the conditioning he makes it is mission to protect Kristen and discover the truth of who he is and what secrets are hidden in his lost memory.
From this point on the story takes off at a fast pace as Rider and Kristen race to outrun the killers from the future who seem to know their every move, have weapons from the future and no other purpose but to see her dead.
Fast-paced and filled with mystery this novel sets itself up for a possible sequel and is a joy to read.
The only quibble I have is Darwin, I get the distinct impression I was missing something about that particular character which is never fully explained. Perhaps if a sequel is in the making it will feature more of this mysterious prophet.
RATING : 
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Also by Rickey R Mallory: Heart of the Hero
Read an interview with Rickey R Mallory
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