|
In 2004 Michael Simon immediately caught the attention of fans of noir fiction with DIRTY SALLY, his dark, gritty debut novel. Set in Austin, Texas in 1988, it introduced Homicide Detective Dan Reles, the only Yankee or Jew on the force, a complex and brooding man trying to stay upright in a crooked world. In BODY SCISSORS, Simon continues to build on the topics and themes introduced in DIRTY SALLY while further developing Reles's life and personality, using the dirty underside of Austin as an angry backdrop.
BODY SCISSORS is set in 1991 at the beginning of the Persian Gulf War. Reles is living with Rachel Velez, the widow of Joey Velez, his best friend and homicide partner. The opening passages, wherein Reles and Rachel seem constantly on the verge of connection, foreshadow the events of the book on a number of levels. Reles is assigned to assist in the investigation of an apparent assassination attempt on Virginia Key, an activist community leader. The attempt on Key's life is a failure but results in the death of her daughter while leaving her son in a coma.
From the moment of her introduction Key is an enigma who captures the attention --- and appreciation --- of Detective James Torbett. While Torbett struggles with his attraction to Key, Reles attempts to unravel the surprising connection between the attack upon Key and the seedy Austin drug scene. Key's personal and professional past have the potential to explode at any moment, but she is not the only one with a past; everyone, including Reles and Rachel, has secrets. As Reles's investigation uncovers a surprising revelation about Joey's past, Reles and Rachel join Key in becoming the targets of a powerful madman who seeks to enact a penultimate revenge upon each and every one of them.
Reles's Austin is not the Chamber of Commerce dream that hosts an annual music festival and free weekly events in front of city hall, and in general is a cultural and financial boomtown. Rather, it is a city cast in shadow, where actions at the highest and lowest levels are carried out in a furtive manner with dangerous ends, where one who expects betrayal, pain and death is never disappointed.
BODY SCISSORS is a story populated by evil characters on both sides of the law, in which the sins of the past fulfill their promise of dire consequences in the present. And Michael Simon? He writes like an angel sitting in a blackened room full of spiders. Highly recommended.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
 Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com.
© Copyright 1996-2008, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.
Back to top.
|
