Reed's Promise

Bill Reed receives a message from his cousin Johna page filled with tortured lines and colours, pasted-on letters and numbersa message that clearly conveys fear and confusion. Reed decides to pay John a visit, and thats when the trouble really begins.

Writing a thriller on a small scale is harder than crafting a country-spanning tale of international intrigue, primarily because there's an inverse ratio between location and verisimilitude: the more international the setting, the lower the bar for realism. If the story unfolds in the reader's backyard, then it has to be anchored in reality and there's reality in spades in this engrossing novel by Clarkson (New Lots). Bill Reed, a recently crippled ex-FBI agent with latent family guilt, intends to redeem himself through a renewed relationship with his retarded cousin, Johnny Boy Reed, who has been at the Ullmann Institute since he was a kid. Bill receives a distressed message from Johnny Boy, and after he is rebuffed by the sadistic director, Matthew Ullman, he drives to the institute in an upstate New York town where the sheriff is a paid lackey of the institute and thugs do his bidding. There's a money angle here somewhere, and Bill is just the right guy to find out what it is. He's a forensic accountant, someone who tracks illegal money back to its source, which is exactly what Ullmann and his wife, Madeleine, don't need, because there's money galore coming through the institute. As Bill engages in showdown after showdown with the institute staff, it becomes clear that the premise of this novel is in part an excuse for Clarkson to examine characters under stress and craft grueling scenes of physical effort. This engaging thriller is equipped with psychological depth and a solidly believable center.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

It would probably come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Clarkson's books that the author is also a screenwriter--his novels feature sharply drawn characters in realistic, dramatic situations. In this very satisfying title, private investigator (and former FBI agent) Bill Reed receives a troubling communication from his cousin and winds up in the middle of a very dangerous situation. Although this is hardly an original scenario, Clarkson gives it several variations: Reed is recovering from a motorcycle accident that led to the amputation of his left leg; his cousin is severely retarded and living in an institution. Bill has to try to determine the meaning of his cousin's cryptic message (it's an assortment of letters and numbers cut out of a printed page and glued to a sheet of paper). All of this gives the familiar plot a certain freshness. In addition, Reed, still dealing with the loss of his leg, a strong man forced to cope with unexpected weakness, is like few other mystery protagonists. Reed definitely merits his own series. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved