Frederick Busch North

North

Frederick Busch

Ballantine, May 2006, $13.95

ISBN: 0345486837

Jack works as a security guard at a bar in a North Carolina resort. His wife left him years ago as his career in law enforcement has gone downward on the ladder of success. Always hoping for a reconciliation, Jack now has to accepts that is impossible because Fanny has died. He has as his only companion his nameless canine who Jack knows is dying too.

When male prostitute Jason Arnold tries to pick up a classy looking six footer, Jack intercedes. The woman, New York attorney Merle Davidoff, thanks him for his intervention and admits she is embarrassed to learn the hunk is a whore. She offers Jack work to find her missing twenty-three year nephew Tyler Pearl, who last was heard from a few months ago in Vienna, New York. Jack takes the job in his hometown as a chance to redeem himself by rescuing the young man if needed even though Jack feels as if he has failed at everything he has tried to do which includes once not saving a little girl's life in Vienna.

This sequel to GIRLS returns Jack as the prime protagonist still failing in everything he has done until Merle gives him a chance for atonement (at least in his mind). The story line is character driven though filled with plenty of action as Jack sees an opportunity to climb out of the ooze he has fallen into before he fulfills his self-prophecy of slinking as low as a former military police officer can go. The mystery is well done but takes a back seat to a psychological thriller starring a man whose "significant other" over the last fifteen years is his recently deceased nameless dog.

Harriet Klausner