The Pawn by Steven James

"Aaron Jeffrey Kinkaid sat down beside the gently humming water to watch his girlfriend bleed to death in her parent's whirlpool. Oh yes. Father would be very proud." So begins the swirling plot of The Pawn from debut storyteller Steven James. James cranks out a graphic thriller that is not for the faint-of-heart, but will certainly get the blood flowing for the die-hard of the thriller genre.

Writing along the lines of Robert Liparulo or Tim Downs, James' graphic imagery - while not gratuitous- will thin out the audience for The Pawn. Those looking for true-crime tension without watered-down confrontation with evil will appreciate James' commitment to vivid paintings of crime scene detail.

In keeping with the strength of a real-life perspective, James' protagonist, Patrick Bowers, is a flawed and floundering Environmental Criminologist; a nice touch on James' part to bring an unexpected criminal-science specialty to the front of the story. Bowers is a man teetering between the death of his wife and life without her, complete with charge of her rebellious, hurting, and near-genius 17-year-old daughter. He is a real man barely risking the most tentative steps toward life, love and faith, whose job it is to discover the patterns and associations of a string of brutal murders. The logical becomes unreasonable as the players twist and turn on each others' stories.

James does a masterful job of playing the first-person perspective of Bowers against the observational perspective of the other characters, helping us stay within reach of the hero but at arms length to the brutality of the story.

While some elements of the story seem to be intended as red-herrings, their diversionary success falls flat and the story does not benefit from them. However, they are not a distraction to the story as it plays out and as other information is gathered and dismissed.

National betrayal, espionage, cults, biohazards and just plain evil will tangle you up in this story and hold you to the fever-pitched end. If you can stomach the special effects and don't mind a story that plays itself out like sand in an hour-glass, then I can heartily recommend The Pawn. If you're looking for a safe, predictable, cozy-mystery, you might want to look a little further down the shelf.