Reviewed by Ian Lipke
This book straddles the shaky fence between crime and thriller writing. It is best described as a crime novel amply boosted by patches of quite scary writing that makes the heart skid into overdrive until the situation is resolved. Such passages combined with some very good writing make a much more than adequate book.
I have not come across Stuart Black or his writings before now but must assume that he has experience in the corporate world as this novel draws upon that type of experience to give it authenticity. The book tells the reader that, having built up a business from nothing, Sam Pride and Chaz Bailey sold it for a handsome sum. It seemed that Sam, married to a beautiful woman, was set for life. Then Chaz is kidnapped.
A criminal gang demands the release of a document and is prepared to torture their victim to lay their hands on it. They are prepared to murder, but neither Sam nor Chaz know the document they allude to. Sam and his wife Lauren become suspects and soon find themselves pursued by police and criminals alike. The resolution of this tangled mess depends on where trust may lie, and to whom Sam may turn to.
One of the shortcomings of this story is the vague appellation of ‘a document’ that the villains are seeking. If the written source had been named it would have received its own identity, become more recognisable, and become more of an object to be pursued. As it is, it remains something I cannot warm to; it’s just a piece of paper.
Lauren plays a small part in this story, comparatively speaking, but she is real, the sort of person who identifies with ‘housewife’. By contrast, Zoe is a type that I find difficult to imagine. She is more abstract than real. In like manner Chaz, tortured and torn as he is, identifies with a modern western adult more than Sam does. This is not to say that Sam is poorly drawn. He simply doesn’t draw the sympathy that Chaz does.
It may not have been the intention of the author, but the villains are the most persistent, finely-drawn pack of animals to be found in the book. They are evil and committed to be so. There are no half measures with them, no suggestion of easing up on their victim. Their task is starkly defined and there is no suggestion of deviation.
The book is set in an environment that the author knows well. The starkness of the warehouses, the gloom of the inside rooms where the action proceeds in its grisly business never falters. By contrast, the home scenes are warm and welcoming.
This is a book that explores the identification of trust. We conclude the identification through the actions and motives of the characters as much as we do by our reading of the environment in which those actions occur.
(2023)
by Stuart Black
Interactive Publications
ISBN: 978 192283 028 9
$33.00; 228pp