Fishburne offers an engaging debut thriller about an Atlanta man who must choose between his family and his most cherished beliefs.
High school football coach and newly appointed assistant principal Danny Chambers is a nonviolent Christian; when he served in Iraq, he flew medevac choppers instead of firing weapons. But while stopped at a traffic light, he rescues a woman in another car from being savagely beaten, accidentally hurling her assailant into oncoming traffic. The press hails Danny as a hero, but the dead young man’s father, Francisco Ramos, is not so forgiving. Ramos, aka Cisco Ram, heads a ruthless gang called the Latin Death Lords, and he launches a campaign of terror against Danny and his family. When the police provide Danny with little help, he struggles with his deeply felt religious beliefs. The plot twists and turns as Fishburne weaves together a large cast of characters, including an ambitious reporter, a crooked judge, a gambling addict and a school janitor who once had a problem similar to Danny’s. In the end, Danny must reconcile his pacifism and faith with the life-threatening reality of his situation in an action-packed, satisfying and surprising denouement. The author is especially skilled with minor characters; he portrays some members of the Latin Death Lords particularly well—men with street names like the Knife, the Drunk, and the Butcher—and some readers may find their personalities, motives and dialogue more intriguing than those of people more important to the story.
A thoughtful high-action novel that blends exciting urban drama with moral conflict.
