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Will Willard, an old accomplice from Van Shaw's grandfather's day, calls in a favor when he asks Van to track down his niece, Elana. Van knows Elana from high school, although he hasn't seen her in years. Van treks off to a mountain cabin and finds Elana. She's dead, and her boyfriend (the son of a very wealthy Seattle family) is being eaten by a bear. It's theoretically possible that Kendrick Haymes killed Elana and then killed himself, and that's the way some people would like things to go. Van isn't one of them. He carries some guilt about Elana for some things that happened a long time ago, and he wants to know what really happened to Elana.
This being a thriller, nothing is as easy as it sounds, or as uncomplicated as it might be. Several people wind up dead after Van has dealings with them. He's not sure why, so it becomes part of the puzzle. The Haymes family wants Van to recover something they believe has been stolen from them; they won't say what it is or why it is so important to them. And they are willing to pay a ton of money to get whatever it is back. They don't really care about Elana, just the missing stuff.
Hamilton has the story arc of a thriller well in hand. The flash-backs are placed very well; we learn a bit more about Van, his past, and his connection with Elana with each one, and they connect well with where they are placed inside the current plot. His characters are well-developed and, given their various backgrounds, as likeable or not as they should be. Van himself is an adrenaline junkie, although he doesn't really realize it for a long time. His girlfriend Luce cares for him deeply, and puts up with a lot. His neighbor Addy Proctor is a hoot; she's seen more in her day than Van can begin to imagine. Both are strong women; it's a pleasure to find characters like them in a thriller. Seattle and the surroundings are a great setting: Gritty enough for the nasty bits, lovely enough for the rest of the story. The story itself is great. Believable, each step seeming to flow naturally from what has already taken place. For a second novel, this is very well done. Well done enough that I ordered the first one after finishing HARD COLD WINTER. Now I have to look for another Hamilton when I go to the bookstore. Lucky for this guy, Erik comes alphabetically before Steve.
§ I have been reading and reviewing mystery fiction for over a quarter of a century and read broadly within just about all genres and sub-genres. I have been a preliminary judge for the Malice Domestic/St. Martin’s Press Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Contest for at least 25 years. I live in Northern lower Michigan with my spousal unit, one large cat, and 2 fairly small dogs. My Sherlockian (BSI) nom-de-plume is VR; my license plate is BSI VR
Reviewed by PJ Coldren, March 2016
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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