Booklist
Issue: September 1, 2009
The greatest strength of crime fiction is the genre’s elasticity, opening its doors to the cuddliest cozies and the darkest of noirs. Unfortunately, too many publishers insist that authors remain glued to easily marketable slots. Lister, known for a soft-boiled series starring a prison chaplain, thankfully throws away the book in this stand-alone. The result is something akin to a Warner Brothers chain gang yarn crossed with a Hitchcockian thriller. The reader is intensely aware that a man’s life is at stake, and it’s not at all certain that everything will be all right in the end. Here’s the deal: ad-agency executive Remington James suffers a mid life crisis when his marriage goes to hell and his job loses it satisfaction. He returns (from Orlando) to the Florida panhandle to run the family pawn shop, take care of his ailing mother, take up fine-arts photography, and enjoy the wild life in the family woods (leased out to a hunt club). All goes awry when he unwittingly photographs an errant game warden murdering a young woman. He’s seen, and an excruciating chase ensues involving a pack of hounds. A spellbinding page-turner.
-Steve Glassman
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