Hard Town

 

 

Hard Town is Adam Platinga’s second novel and the first one that I’ve read. I had run out of my own audiobooks and found this one on Libby. I intend to give the author a significant compliment when I say that his book felt like a cross between novels by Lee Child and Don Winslow. The protagonist, Kurt Argento, is a retired Detroit cop who has found himself roaming aimlessly about the country, currently landing in a small Arizona desert town. While having his usual breakfast in a diner, he is approached by a young woman who has a two-year-old son. She said she had checked up on Argento, knew him to be a fair man, and she wanted his help to find out what happened to her husband when he disappeared two weeks earlier. Much like Child’s Jack Reacher, although he was initially inclined to avoid this woman’s request, Argento perceived something was going wrong in the town and he decided to figure out what that might be. Much like Don Winslow, there was involvement with a Mexican drug cartel although there was a very significant twist to the cartel’s involvement. People were dying and Argento was warned to stay away, and when he didn’t, it was a corrupt government agency that tried to kill him. One of the government killed his beloved dog, and that’s when the action really began. There was lots of fire power in the closing act. If you like Child and Winslow, you’ll love Hard Town.