PILATE'S FAITH

This latest installment in Greenwood’s John Pilate series shows us that a little town in Nebraska can be a hotbed of evil.

John Pilate’s life is a hot mess. He has PTSD, perhaps the result of childhood neglect and the many, many misadventures that followed. He aches to make things right with his estranged wife back in Cross, Nebraska, but he drinks too much, and right now, he is held prisoner in a sweltering shipping container in Key West (yes, he escapes). Off he goes to win back Kate, the wife. Pilate has a history in Cross. In fact, he wrote a bestseller about the violence visited on the town. People are getting shot again, and the acting sheriff, Jeremy Ryder, enlists him to help to sort it all out. Oh, and he has left a romantic entanglement back in Florida with Val, his boxing trainer. After all sorts of surprises and a full complement of weirdos, scary confrontations, and harrowing gunplay, peace of a sort returns to Cross, though nothing is ever certain in John Pilate’s world. Greenwood pulls many tricks from his writer’s satchel. One of the most appealing is Pilate’s inner voice, Simon, a “little boy, dressed up in a big boy costume,” which is akin to his conscience. And there is a real baddie whom we get to know as “Mr. Nice-Nice” for his favorite expression—he’s the creep who locked Pilate in the shipping container. Pilate is an unlikely hero. He’s no better than he should be and spends much of the time hung over. But he loves Kate fiercely and their two kids even more. There are some weak spots in the plot and some questions that have only vague or speculative answers, but the book also has a quirkiness and energy and snappy/snarky dialogue that keep things moving briskly. At book’s end, has Pilate finally found some sort of equilibrium? Is this a man who can learn anything? Or is this not the last of the Pilate series? Finally, another copy edit wouldn’t hurt.

A well-handled mystery with the appropriate twist at the end.