UNLEASH THE FURY

In D’Aquisto’s thriller, a retired cop goes head-to-head with brutal gangs in rural Sri Lanka.

Three years after retiring from the Seattle Police Department, detective-turned-private-investigator John Sandes finds himself on an extended vacation in Sri Lanka, where he spends the days swimming in the warm sea and sampling the local cuisine at beachside restaurants. On a drive between resort areas, he stops for lunch in what appears to be a sleepy town—one so small it’s not marked on his map—only to witness two men attack a woman with acid. After the police refuse to do anything about the incident (other than advise Sandes to leave the area), he learns that the town is hostage to two outlaw factions: a group of Australian drug smugglers and the Sri Lankan mob. Never one to let an injustice go unaddressed, Sandes finds and kills one of the woman’s attackers—a Sri Lankan mobster—earning him the respect of the Australians. He temporarily enters the protection of the Aussies, thus upsetting the town’s fragile truce. Disgusted by the murderous behavior of both groups, Sandes finds himself caught, perhaps fatally, between a rock and a hard place. If he wants to ever make it out of Sri Lanka alive, he’s going to have to shoot his way out. The point of view alternates between that of John and several supporting characters, but D’Aquisto’s no-frills prose is a constant: “As soon as I heard the bang, I bolted away,” narrates Sandes during a typical fracas. “I didn’t want to lose any time. I heard tons of gunshots. I knew there was a chance someone would shoot me in the back as I ran, but my hope was that the two gangs would be too busy shooting at each other to notice me.” Despite Sandes’s profession, the narrative does not involve much detecting, and the plot serves primarily to shuttle John between shootouts. With its tropical Sri Lankan setting, this will be a satisfying beach read for fans of 1980s action movies.

A bloody, escapist thriller following a man with nothing to lose.