Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Eyes of the Innocent

I raved about Brad Parks first award-winning novel, Faces of the Gone, and his second, Eyes of the Innocent is equally praise worthy. Carter Ross is an investigative newspaper reporter in Newark, and Parks is able to spin a great crime story while providing a between-the-lines social commentary. This book starts with the death of two young boys who were trapped in a home that was intentionally torched. Their single mom had taken on a second job at night in order to pay the skyrocketing costs of her subprime mortgage, and she could not afford for anyone to stay with her boys. The story gets complicated when it turns out the father of the two boys is a city councilman who has been doing some under-the-table real estate dealing.


Parks is a master at character development and portrayal. He does particularly well playing off his characters racial and sexual differences, and his use of dialogue is fantastic. I am officially now a Brad Park fan and will promptly get his third book, The Girl Next Door, another award winning novel.

No comments:

Post a Comment