BLACK RIFLE

The murder of a senator’s daughter unveils a darkness at the core of the American dream in Davidson’s debut novel.

The novel starts with a mass shooting of 13 people, including the daughter of pro–gun rights U.S. Sen. Marco Barros, in an apartment complex in Los Angeles. Special Agent Miranda Lopez of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives oversees the investigation into the crime, which was carried out with an AR-15, the most common rifle in the United States. The story follows a number of other characters, as well: Cal, an assassin for hire, who gets a job to find Arianna Barros’ murderer before the police do; D’Andre, a young, studious Black teenager in Chicago, and his friend Russ, whose lives are about to take a turn for the worse; Ryan, a bigoted 18-year-old Arizonan gun seller who discovers others who share his vile views; and Jimmy McClean, the junior U.S. senator from Texas and a close friend of the Barros family. These lives slowly intertwine as Miranda works hard to get to the bottom of the mystery, not only so she can get justice for Arianna and the other victims, but also, to a lesser extent, to prove herself to her estranged girlfriend, Camilla. The story bounces back and forth among the various characters in a sparse, movie script–like narrative that often states what the various players are feeling rather than showing it through their actions; as a result, many of them feel like cardboard caricatures that exist only to pontificate. Still, Davidson manages to build up an intricate portrait of the United States that highlights the intersections of corruption, religion, and government power and explores right-wing extremism, the radicalization of White youth, and the United States’ lax gun laws. In the end, the author presents an often powerful indictment of American gun culture in all its facets as it follows the titular rifle, an AR-15 that changes hands over the course of the story.

A highly topical and bleak thriller about American gun culture hampered by shallow characterization.