Review: Pearce Hansen's new novel is his best yet.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 14, 2012
This is one of my best reads in years. It's one of those while you're reading it you go back and reread parts because they're that good.When Everett was a criminal he was one of the top guys. But he retired from the criminal life to devote himself to his wife and child and the world they've created far from the mean streets. It will take him longer to retire his inner convict and become fully human. But he's pulled back in when his past shows up to extort him into doing one last job: neo-Nazis want him to use his particular set of skills to recover stolen Nazi gold. This means leaving his world to return to the mean streets and taking on a cult leader running a commune of street people.Everett is the coldest ex-con badass since Andrew Vachss' Burke. Everett moves through the gutters of the mean streets, picking up a homicidal boy wonder for a sidekick, dealing with everything from bottom-feeding amateurs to pros who are his equal for deadliness. There isn't a scene that is less than compelling. None of the characters are forgettable after you read them. There are scenes from Everett's childhood that are amazing, the events that made him the way he is. This is both a textbook on what makes a badass and the study of a man discovering the scale of his damage and the humanity just beyond his reach. Of the many cool things about this novel the coolest is watching his reach get closer to it.