Mr. Hughes believes everybody should give back just a little to the human species. A painless yet extremely meaningful way is to join Folding@Home. This project uses "idle" time on your computer to help cure various cancers, Hepatitis C, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, along with many other things that can wipe out a human. He has many machines in his office supporting this project. In fact, he created a team:  Twenty of Two  id: 1068243   If you read his books and decide to participate in curing things that kill humans indiscriminately, please join the team.

Reviews

In Roland Hughes’s Twenty of Two The Infamous They, Old Timer has spent decades inside a secret organization that gives him false names, covert assignments, and targets chosen by unseen managers. After a stop at a bar with Henry, a chef trained to kill through food, Old Timer receives orders that do not match company procedure. A meeting in New York reveals that someone inside the organization has been using hidden channels to mark him for death. Forced to work with three operatives known as the Acrobats, Old Timer follows the trail to New Orleans, where dead mechanics, Russian contacts, stolen computer disks, and Cold War missile code point to a betrayal larger than one failed job. To survive, he must expose the false assignment before the people behind it erase every record that could protect him.

Roland Hughes’s Twenty of Two The Infamous They is a brilliant, fast-paced thriller about Old Timer, a covert operative hunted by his secret employer. The author does an excellent job of amping up the suspense. Old Timer is so likeable, which, given his line of work, is a testament to Hughes's skill as a writer. We get to know him well because the author drops us right into his head—and his journals! I love Stretch, another operative, who has his own bag of tricks that help them slip past bits of tracking. Where the author shines is in his ability to write visual prose, from a sterile New York office where killers sit beneath a corporate facade, to a Japanese garden that offers calm as hunted men are hidden. This is a long book, but the premise is unique, and there are plenty of twists. Readers who enjoy covert thrillers will have plenty to keep the pages turning. Very highly recommended.

Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers’ Favorite

Twenty of Two The Infamous They by Roland Hughes follows Old Timer, a veteran covert operative nearing retirement, who is sent on a job that should begin with a hotel check-in, a message, and a new identity, but one night in a roadside bar places him beside Melony, a Marine widow from the Iraq War. When his assignment trail moves from a New York office to New Orleans safe houses, Old Timer finds evidence that someone inside his organization has turned its own killers into targets. Henry, a poison-trained chef, becomes the threat Old Timer understands the least, while the Acrobats become allies in a hunt linked to SKULLS, dead mechanics, Russian missile code, and Cold War secrets. To leave this life behind, Old Timer must separate the official job from the trap around him.

Twenty of Two The Infamous They by Roland Hughes shows the author at his sharpest through Old Timer, a retiring operative whose tradecraft gives every scene a personal signature. Hughes turns the New Orleans death house into a superb test of loyalty when a body changes the mission from a routine cleanup into a reckoning among men trained to erase traces. The book’s best quality is the exact use of procedure as a character study. A prepaid phone is not a prop. A hotel notepad is not background. A freezer full of ice becomes a tactical requirement. The author also makes Old Timer’s retirement plot feel singular because money trails, shell companies, hidden lockers, Russian missile software, Melony’s trust, Tiffany’s grief, Henry’s poison, Dimitri’s meeting, plus the Acrobats’ loyalty all return to choices only the author could stage this way. I would love to see this branch out into a series. I'd have no problem just reading more of Old Timer's journals...although the guy definitely deserves a break!

Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers’ Favorite

War is scary enough, the possibility of nuclear war is terrifying.

It's a work of fiction, but it reminds us that the crooked timber of humanity is on full slanted display through the current climate of world affairs.

The author aims to inform us through bone chilling narrative and harrowing facts.

These events have lived rent free in my mind long after I've finished, and I remain haunted by his description of the strategies and tactics employed during the course of this book.

The best word to describe this was eye-opening. You won't soon forget it and you will wonder what else has been swept under the rug.
Texas Book Nook

"Twenty of Two - The Infamous They” is a daunting novel in size, but it really is fascinating and entertaining in equal measures.

The story is fast paced and quickly engaging – we are a bit in the past, but not to distant that you don't understand the landscape or time. We are however deeply into Ukraine and wars and politics so if you are not as familiar with those things, it will take a bit for you to understand.

The author does a great job of really delving into political and historical themes and really making the reader contemplate what has happen and even what could happen.

We are given such believable characters, moments, and settings all heightened by the way the author shared the descriptions and kept the pacing steady.

Uncover some government and political secrets and be fascinated along the way.
The Indie Express

Roland Hughes’s Twenty of Two The Infamous They delivers a thriller that follows an unnamed, aging assassin fondly called Old Timer who works for a bureaucratic, shadowy killing machine. The story opens with him and his partner, Henry, waiting in a dive bar for a mission that quickly transforms into an off-book purge. What follows is a cross-country odyssey filled with paranoia, taking them through storage lockers, corporate housing, and anonymous chain restaurants. Old Timer and a team of reluctant killers, including the trio known as the Acrobats (all three with shaved heads and sharing the same bed), wade through internal sabotage, Cold-War-era conspiracy, and Russian blackmail. In their preparation for a final hit, they discover, painfully, that the labyrinth of logistical survival might be deadlier than the mission itself, where every prepaid card, burner phone, or rental car can become a deadly sentence.

What I loved about the story is the quirky voice of Old Timer, the narrator. It is cynically funny, world-weary, and obsessively detailed. The narrative voice moves from a first-person perspective to break the fourth wall, where the narrator lectures on everything, from money laundering to vehicle maintenance, and it cleverly portrays a character who is a competent logistics geek and a detached sociopath. Other characters are complex and memorable in their traits, especially Henry, known for his knack for creating deadly culinary poisons. Twenty of Two The Infamous They by Roland Hughes was a great ride through the grubby American underbelly: cheap diners, roach-infested motels, and storage facilities. I endorse the book for its humor and sophisticated characterization.

Reviewed by Christian Sia for Readers’ Favorite

An incredibly different kind of from not so distant history story where the narrative is layered and the escalation is convincingly done.

The author writes knowledgably about the place and time.

Plot, characters, and circumstances all worked. Excellent suspense thriller.

This novel puts forth a scenario that is very believable. It really makes you contemplate what the government hides and what major things we never know about.
Novel News Network

Twenty of Two: The Infamous They by Roland Hughes is the long, winding story of Old Timer, a veteran assassin working for a shadowy organization, who is saddled with Henry, a diminutive master chef specializing in twenty-two-part poisons. The corrupt management decides to put Old Timer on retirement through The Acrobats, but he surprises them by turning the tables, uncovering a conspiracy that hints at a Russian dark plot to recover a stolen ICBM guidance code he secretly sabotaged decades ago. After making a stop at a single mother, Melony, who offers him shelter, he must endure a violent purge, deal with the attacks from disposable “condom” recruits, negotiate a deal with Ukrainian operatives, and face his old nemesis, Dimitri.

Roland Hughes’ book is a tale of survival that focuses on the logistical aspects and long-game strategy. This story is a slow-burn. The cynical first-person narrative voice treats assassination with the mundanity of an oil change while delivering darkly comic asides about Chardonnay, storage lockers, and IT consulting, making it a compelling read. Old Timer is a multidimensional character, part car geek, part killer, and part pack rat, whose encyclopedic knowledge of money-laundering, vehicle prep, and kill-craft gives the story a unique, granular worldbuilding. Twenty of Two: The Infamous They features digressions on Agile software development, nuclear war theory, and the “female disease” before exploding into action. This is a book that examines espionage and contemporary political anger, castigating the moral rot of the elite and corporate betrayal while addressing the impossibility of clean retirement.

Reviewed by Romuald Dzemo for Readers’ Favorite

Unseen forces hold sway in this arresting political thriller. The author makes the most of his knowledge and passion for the subject by presenting a credible, thought-provoking scenario with real history to back it up.

This is written in an engaging fast paced style. It proved to be compelling, drawing readers in with vivid descriptions and clear explanations while keeping readers on their toes.
On A Reading Bender

Roland Hughes takes readers into the shadowy world of assassins who live, work, and fly under the radar. Excuse them for being paranoid, because they may be “retired” at any time, usually permanently. Longevity is not a normal attribute of the profession, and there is no company pension scheme. The author introduces the Old Timer, an ageing assassin, who we meet when he was approached by a woman in a shady pub. They talk, personal details are shared sparingly, and for a while, things look interesting. Work intervenes. After being paired for a mission with a partner who had questionable habits, the Old Timer was summoned to attend a disciplinary meeting that soon unraveled. What follows is described in Twenty of Two the Infamous They: Five Nuclear Wars You Can Win. It emerged that he is more than just an operative, having had a legitimate history in the IT industry as a highly skilled computer programmer. His exploits in that field make him a target due to the top-secret nature of his past exploits. The drama escalates into an international espionage and sabotage conspiracy that involves nuclear warfare and political intrigue. Conspiracies abound, and the Old Timer and his mixed crew of associates must use their survival skills to stay ahead of the opposition, but who can be trusted?

Roland Hughes uses both his creative ability and knowledge of the computer programming world to the full in Twenty of Two the Infamous They. The catchy title derives from an assassination method that involves the use of poisons administered by a master chef through food. There are lessons in ballistics, money laundering, stock market manipulation, paper companies, and how to create and maintain multiple identities. All in a day’s work in that profession, if one can call it that. The action is highly original, and the writing maintains a brisk pace while incorporating suitably intriguing participants, along with their quirky habits, which are shared with humor. The book examines the mind of the assassin, what motivates them, and their ability to compartmentalize reality. There are references to sexual orientation, but these are not meant to be derogatory. As is to be expected, the odd strong language is used as it is a rough industry. Readers should be aware that there is also much violence and death. The Old Timer and his compatriots will fascinate readers as they exemplify both good and evil in this lively work.

Reviewed by Leonard Smuts for Readers’ Favorite