"When you walk into a liquor store with a gun in your hand and a mask over your face, you rip the lid off the world. Time does some real Einstein shit. It streches; it shrinks."
Nate ends up in a
California prison for a short stint at ‘rehabilitation.’
The prison has a supermax wing for lifers. In solitary is Crazy Craig, the President of the Aryan Steel, the biggest dog in the white supremacy hierarchy of the California penal system. He has a brother in the joint who decides to get into a dustup with Nate (who is days from release on some legal technicality) . . . the two go at it and Crazy Craig’s brother ends up dead . . . prison goes on lockdown but after a week of failed investigation, the lockdown in lifted and Nate gets his release . . . within a day or two of release, the word is out that it was Nate who killed Craig's brother . . . Crazy Craig puts out a bounty to his Aryan Steel family . . . kill Nate . . . and his wife . . . and his daughter. When Nate is alerted to the bounty, he sets out to find his ex, Avis, and their daughter, the 11yo Polly.
First stop. Avis’ home and her husband – both dead. And not by a single shot to the head. No. Don't just kill them. Send Nate a message. They were both bludgeoned and tortured. Polly had gotten a ride from school that day and was late getting home. She finds Nate there, a man she barely knows, who whisks her up to put some distance between them and the Aryan Steel. He has to protect her and to teach her how to survive. And not only are they dodging the gang, they are also keeping their distance from Detective Park who is looking for Nate as a possible kidnapper.
It’s one town after another down the central valley of California. Each stop they run into an Aryan Steel member (or wanna-be) intent on cashing in on Crazy Craig’s call to action.
"Looking down the barrel of a gun, you don't see the tip of the bullet. You just see darkness, like a preview of eternity."
After besting a few derelicts, Nate comes up with a plan. Instead of just killing each hunter and moving on, he decides to hit Aryan Steel where it hurts – their income. He hits cooking houses, drug warehouses, their ‘banks’ accumulating a tidy sum. His plan is to cut them off so hard that the kill order would be lifted so business could return to normal.
But Aryan Steel isn’t so easily reasoned with, and they press the chase harder deep into the desert to a town of wholesale meth cookers protected by a seriously crooked sheriff. The confrontation in the desert between the cookers, the sheriff, Aryan Steel, and Detective Park, each hell bent on being the first to get to Nate and Polly is the stuff of legend.
Boys and girls, this is a serious ball buster. Top shelf California Noir. A story of redemption and a renewal of family; of father protecting daughter and daughter turning the tables and protecting her dad. Where an ex-con and absent father discovers that he does indeed have feelings for a little girl and the little girl grows to worship this man she doesn't know but really does know. The ends that Nate will go to protect her will have you scratching your head and high-fiving their every success.
If you like newbies to the noir world like SA Cosby and Brian Panowich (all their books are reviewed here in MRB; just search for each author), you’ll need to add Jordan Harper to that short list. Harper’s 2nd effort, Everybody Knows, received high praise from me. So high that I ran right out and got his first book . . . this one. When the chase hits the desert, send everyone away. Any interruptions will have you slamming and locking your door so you can finish.
This book was published in 2017 and won Harper the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. And a movie is in post-production now and looking for a distributor. Keep your eye/ears open. Assuming Hollywood doesn’t f*** this up, the movie will be a stone cold winner.
ECD
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