Review: Not for the faint of heart or squeamish
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 6, 2014
The author gifted me with a copy of this book.  That has not compromised my ability to write an honest and critical review of this book.4/2 - This is Kinsey Millhone for adults. Take away the 'cosy mystery' tag that Sue Grafton's books fit under and replace it with 'gore-y, curse-filled, conflicted heroes (although I doubt the 'heroes' are conflicted, but we are about whether or not they're actually heroes) mystery' and you've got an idea of what's going on in Hope for the Wicked - which is EXCELLENT because I love Kinsey, but her murders are a bit clean and follow a clear formula in each book. I'm looking forward to the 'heroes' doing some very unheroic murdering which will (I hope) be graphically described followed by the rescue of a much more battered than usual victim with some raunchy sex scenes thrown in for good measure. To be continued...An hour later - This is perfect for me - a pair of vigilante private investigators ready, willing and able to deal out some swift and violent justice to the scum they're paid to hunt down (or in this case the scum who kidnapped the victim they were paid to rescue).  I think there's a number of good arguments for vigilantism, as long as you are skilful enough to avoid hurting or executing innocent people and you keep the killing to only those necessary (like those who won't surrender without a gun battle and the ones you can't actually prove are guilty in a legal sense, but you know they did it), while the rest of the bad guys get a bullet in the kneecap and a trip to jail for a very long time (Person of Interest-like).  I would have absolutely no problem with John Reese being the judge, jury and executioner (if necessary) in my city (if it was as full of corrupt cops and city officials as New York seems to be), we'd be seeing a lot less rape, murder and random gun violence if he was patrolling the streets instead of just the cops who often seem hamstrung by all the damn legal procedures necessary to make an arrest and conviction.  To be continued...Now past midnight, so the next morning 5/2 - If Dane hadn't taken care of it in his own way I would suggest Larry and Mo could take some time out and meet with Ella May Peters, I'm sure they could also come up with a number of 'fitting' endings for a mother who was too scared to save her son from his father's fists. Larry and Mo carry out the kind of sentence I always wished Benson and Stabler had the authority to when I watched Law and Order: SVU - guess what I always wanted to do to the rapists (hint, it ends with the rapist screaming until they pass out, only to wake in even more pain than before, but no dying - dying's too easy, living is the best punishment). To be continued...Later that afternoon - I've just lost a lot of respect for Mo because it seems she's more a serial killer who happens to kill bad guys (mostly) rather than a vigilante who kills to stop monsters.  I don't know how Mo and Larry are going to be able to go on after that revelation, for both of them to realise that they don't know their spouse of ten years at all might be too much for them to deal with.  That's not even considering the secret Larry's still carrying about his and his father's connection to Mo's past - if Larry's realisation of who Mo's willing to kill and for what reasons isn't the straw that breaks the camel's back, then Mo's discovery of Larry's connection to childhood trauma definitely will be.  To be continued...A chapter later - WOW!  I wasn't expecting that.  If I had been watching it rather than reading it I would have jumped for sure.  As it is my heart's pounding with a little bit of fear that Mo's not going to survive.  As Mo and Larry managed to 'make up' after Mo's revelations concerning the Bloomindale job, despite my belief that it might be impossible (I knew there'd be a raunchy sex scene in here somewhere), it would be particularly heart-breaking to see her die on this final job, the one with the big score to set them up for life.  To be continued...A few hours later - Please don't tell me Mo knew who Larry really was the whole time!!  And that she's been planning her terrible revenge from the beginning!!  If that's where this is going, damn I was not expecting that and while it's a fantastic twist (a key feature of Lorn's writing?) I really don't want it to be true because I really liked their relationship.  They were  (or hopefully, still are) the perfect pair - in love with each other and in love with executing the vilest of criminals.  But maybe this isn't the final twist, maybe what seems to be happening now isn't what's really going on.  To be continued...Another hour later - Oh I seeee (or at least I think I do, I may be jumping the gun a bit but the way Corte is talking to the windshield man is a bit suspicious)!!  Mo's not real!  She's a figment of Larry's imagination.  I wonder whether she was ever real or if his mind broke after the horror of being forced take part in Maureen Samson's abuse.  It's like the last chapter of Life after Dane, I want to go back through the whole story and check for clues that I might have missed.  I had no inkling of this new twist - well I guessed the previous 'twist' I figured out (which turned out to be a fake twist to distract me) wouldn't be the final one because there was still quite a few chapters to go - but until Corte got to the end of his story about the 'firmer' I had no idea what the twist might be (Lorn certainly didn't telegraph his big reveal until it was almost inevitable that we should see it).  I always feel a certain sense of satisfaction when I work out the bad guy before the story (in books, movies or tv) means for me to know, but at the same time I feel a bit disappointed that the author (or writers) didn't do a better job hiding the final reveal in plain sight, like a magician only showing me what they want me to see, when they want me to see it.  Don't worry, there's no sense of satisfaction here, I had no idea what was going to happen and I hope I've managed to conceal it from you, yet at the same time made it sound enticing.  To be continued...SPOILERS BELOW THE PAGE BREAK, CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISKA half hour later - Okay, so Mo was real and alive right up until El Burro's rape literally split her apart, which, unsurprisingly, killed her.  That was a very graphic scene, btw - puts the MA15+ rating up to R18+, on level with the Saw movies.  I'm not sure if the fact that Mo was real makes her death more, or less, devastating for Larry (and me).  I'm really quite sad about the loss of Mo as I was imagining a long-running series of books with Larry and Mo (and occasional guest spots for Curly) doing normal P.I. work and occasionally coming out of retirement for particularly evil criminals who really need to be tortured and then disposed of (the one silver lining in Mo's death is that Larry never has to admit to the part he played in his father's sexual abuse of her).  Now what's going to happen?  Is Larry going to become an angry, alcoholic, work-obsessed P.I. whose only company is a dog?  Maybe Tommy will escape him in this book and Larry will make it his life's mission to track him down and re-enact poor Mo's final moments on Tommy.  To be continued...Another half hour - Oh dear, why'd he have to go and kill the dog?  Was that really necessary?  And what the hell is going on?  Does it have something to do with the fact that I just noticed that the front cover has the shadow of a video camera sitting on a tripod on it.  What's that about?  Is it all part of some crazy "Just Kidding" type game show with secret cameras following him everywhere?  Or even, instead of 'The Truman Show', is this 'The Larry Show'?  Or is Larry insane, locked in a mental institution and this has all been another of his delusions?  It's all very strange.  To be continued...11:30 pm - Okay, so I had some 'out there' theories of what might be going on, but in my defence my brain was a bit overloaded with thoughts of where the story might be going - and of course I was way off-course (I usually am).  I'm not going to give away any more of the ending, but I will say I am very curious to see where the plot of Larry Laughlin, #2 is going to take us as the end doesn't scream "Cliffhanger!  Sequel coming soon!".  I mean, I suppose it could follow on from exactly where Hope for the Wicked left off, but unless the entire book is Larry's 'dealings' with Jude I can't imagine where the plot would go after Jude was taken care of - I guess that's the magic of a great author, they completely confuse and surprise you with the plot twists, but it all makes sense in the end.