A violent, thrilling mystery hampered at times by overly gruesome exposition.
A debut novel following a former hit man who tries to eliminate old enemies before the past catches up with him.
Tristan Stonehorse just got out of prison; someone is already trying to kill him. While repaying a debt he owed a prison gang leader, Tristan finds himself in the middle of an ambush, realizing that someone from the past, someone dangerous and with deep connections, wants him gone for good. Unfortunately for Tristan, the list of suspects is long. After his time as one of the First Nation Syndicate’s top hit men in Canada, there are crooked Mounties, vengeful Hells Angels, and plenty of other shadowy underworld figures who wouldn’t mind him dead. His only clue comes from the execution of a former associate, whose last words point Tristan to a particular job he’d like to forget. As he moves across Canada to stay one step ahead of his pursuers, he revisits his time serving the British forces in Operation Desert Storm as well as the painful memories of his childhood abuse at the hands of twisted priests—a last vendetta he wants to repay and a source of surprising emotional vulnerability. As all these past sins start coming together and closing down on the resourceful Tristan, his daughter, who had finally moved out of the shadows of her father’s crimes, becomes both his biggest weakness and a potential path to real justice. Fleishman mainly writes in the present tense, creating a frantic and absorbing pace that builds intriguing distance from this dangerous main character as he reacts with brutal, calculated force. Tristan has all the makings of a tremendous and complex antihero, reminiscent of those found in Cormac McCarthy or James Ellroy novels. However, the past-tense chapters feel sluggish in comparison. These sections, which detail his past crimes, seem to limp from one grisly act of violence to the next. They provide answers about Tristan, but instead of adding depth, they make him less sympathetic and less interesting.
A violent, thrilling mystery hampered at times by overly gruesome exposition.Pub Date: June 30, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9876927-1-9
Page Count: 254
Publisher: Wheat Kings Endeavor
Review Posted Online: July 24, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters...
Female rivalry is again the main preoccupation of Hannah’s latest Pacific Northwest sob saga (Firefly Lane, 2008, etc.).
At Water’s Edge, the family seat overlooking Hood Canal, Vivi Ann, youngest and prettiest of the Grey sisters and a champion horsewoman, has persuaded embittered patriarch Henry to turn the tumbledown ranch into a Western-style equestrian arena. Eldest sister Winona, a respected lawyer in the nearby village of Oyster Shores, hires taciturn ranch hand Dallas Raintree, a half-Native American. Middle sister Aurora, stay-at-home mother of twins, languishes in a dull marriage. Winona, overweight since adolescence, envies Vivi, whose looks get her everything she wants, especially men. Indeed, Winona’s childhood crush Luke recently proposed to Vivi. Despite Aurora’s urging (her principal role is as sisterly referee), Winona won’t tell Vivi she loves Luke. Yearning for Dallas, Vivi stands up Luke to fall into bed with the enigmatic, tattooed cowboy. Winona snitches to Luke: engagement off. Vivi marries Dallas over Henry’s objections. The love-match triumphs, and Dallas, though scarred by child abuse, is an exemplary father to son Noah. One Christmas Eve, the town floozy is raped and murdered. An eyewitness and forensic evidence incriminate Dallas. Winona refuses to represent him, consigning him to the inept services of a public defender. After a guilty verdict, he’s sentenced to life without parole. A decade later, Winona has reached an uneasy truce with Vivi, who’s still pining for Dallas. Noah is a sullen teen, Aurora a brittle but resigned divorcée. Noah learns about the Seattle Innocence Project. Could modern DNA testing methods exonerate Dallas? Will Aunt Winona redeem herself by reopening the case? The outcome, while predictable, is achieved with more suspense and less sentimental histrionics than usual for Hannah.
Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters and understanding of family dynamics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-312-36410-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2008
A presold prefab blockbuster, what with King's Carrie hitting the moviehouses, Salem's Lot being lensed, The Shining itself sold to Warner Bros. and tapped as a Literary Guild full selection, NAL paperback, etc. (enough activity to demand an afterlife to consummate it all).
The setting is The Overlook, a palatial resort on a Colorado mountain top, snowbound and closed down for the long, long winter. Jack Torrance, a booze-fighting English teacher with a history of violence, is hired as caretaker and, hoping to finish a five-act tragedy he's writing, brings his wife Wendy and small son Danny to the howling loneliness of the half-alive and mad palazzo. The Overlook has a gruesome past, scenes from which start popping into the present in various suites and the ballroom. At first only Danny, gifted with second sight (he's a "shiner"), can see them; then the whole family is being zapped by satanic forces. The reader needs no supersight to glimpse where the story's going as King's formula builds to a hotel reeling with horrors during Poesque New Year's Eve revelry and confetti outta nowhere....
Back-prickling indeed despite the reader's unwillingness at being mercilessly manipulated.
Pub Date: Jan. 28, 1976
ISBN: 0385121679
Page Count: 453
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1976
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