Friday, June 24, 2011

BOOK REVIEW: The Terror of Living

Title: The Terror of Living

Author: Urban Waite

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

RRP: $32.99

ISBN: 9781847379726

Release Date: March 2011

Pages: 320



Description:



Hunt, an ex-convict, has spent the past twenty years on a small ranch with his wife, supplementing his income with the odd drug smuggling job. Drake, a deputy sheriff, is newly married and has almost escaped the shadow of his father, who was also a sheriff -- and no stranger to the drug trade himself...

Drake is on Hunt's trail when a big drug deal in the mountains goes awry and so begins a terrifying race against time. Although Hunt evades Drake's attempts at capture the traffickers soon unleash a merciless hired killer to reclaim what's theirs. As the chase closes in and loyalties are tested, Drake's quest for justice contends with a hitman's quest for blood, and Hunt must face a terrible choice...



Review:

Urban Waite's powerful debut novel "The Terror of Living" is a character-driven thriller set in the North Cascades. Two men on opposite sides of the law face off. Horse farmer Phil Hunt is a fundamentally descent man who's gotten up to his neck in drug smuggling. Deputy Bobby Drake is a straight arrow cop, his father a disgraced former sheriff imprisoned for misdeeds--or were they mistakes?

The events in this book are graphic, explicit and occasionally disturbing, but with a controlled restraint. There's also a choice twist on the Mexican standoff. For squeamish readers, this is a fair warning that the novel isn't for the faint of heart or for readers who abhor violence in literature. This was executed like a noir-western-opera-suspense-drama-slash-thriller fusion, with a harmonic equipoise of physical action and interior torment. The story is a hybrid brew of nihilism and romanticism, summoning a cauldron of terror and stirring it with an ache and longing for tranquility.

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