Saturday, April 27, 2013

A Human Wolf Pack Trolls for Victims


Quinn Lighthorn, acted as a bounty hunter for the FBI until his problems with anger management landed him in a clinic for psychiatric evaluation. He's been released from the clinic to help the FBI locate two agents who went missing on an assignment to discover what's going on at Safe Haven. Safe Haven's business is to buy up insurance policies from the terminally ill in hopes of being able to collect quickly at a profit.

Quinn signs on as an intern and during his first morning witnesses the murder of one of the policy holders. He wasn't supposed to view it as murder. The setup was to make appear to be an unlucky accident, but Safe Haven is trying to finance a more lucrative policy, knowing this Quinn believes that the accident was in fact a murder.

I found the book difficult to get into. Quinn is not an engaging character. He seems too withdrawn from the action. If he didn't like what was going on and felt at risk there was no reason to stay, but then he becomes involved with one of the policy holders. I found the
twist unbelievable. Quinn is a new hire, and this is a very important policy. I saw no reason why they would trust him. This is an example of the author forcing the characters to act in the service of the plot, and for me, it didn't work.

Each chapter starts with a quote about the behavior of wolves. These are interesting factoids, and I'm sure the author believed they gave insight into the motivations of the characters. However, they broke the stream of action from one chapter to the next and became more annoying than enlightening.

I wish I liked this book better. The idea of the plot is good, and the writing is clear. My problem is that the characters are driven by the plot instead of driving the action. Quinn isn't an attractive character, and the other staff at Safe Haven appear to be caricatures based on the behavior of the wolf pack.

I reviewed this book for Net Galley.

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