Review: Interesting Story with DIstracting Subplots
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 27, 2013
J. R. Rain's Dark Horse introduces readers to Jim Knighthorse, a former college football player with a drinking problem, a bum knee, and a quick wit. Knighthorse is hired by a defense attorney to investigate the murder of a beautiful white high school student whose black boyfriend has been arrested. The local cops (who are exceedingly dumb even by the standards of PI book cops) feel they have an open-and-shut case despite the fact there is no evidence other than the murder weapon which was planted in the boyfriend's car.This is a fairly short book and Rain keeps the story moving, with a couple of unfortunate major distractions. The mystery itself comes together fairly nicely, and Knighthorse dispenses some extralegal justice along the way. However, Rain juggles several subplots that don't work. His primary subplot is a local homeless man who hangs out at MacDonalds, has long talks with Knighthorse, and claims to be God. The two have several encounters in the book, and Rain plays it seriously, but his efforts at theology and metaphysics just don't work.The time wasted on this plot thread, along with ones about an inept hit man and the murder of Knighthorse's mother (which will apparently be resolved in future books), make this book seem padded and distract from the main storyline, without really adding much to character development. As a result, I can't fully recommend the book, but it does give readers hope that subsequent Knighthorse novels will either drop the extraneous story lines or make them work better.