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A Stolen Season comes across a little flat
Book Review
By Derryll White
Hamilton, Steve (2006). A Stolen Season.
Steve Hamilton is an accomplished author with a list of published novels. He focuses on northern Michigan right up against Canada. In ‘A Stolen Season’ he talks frequently about the undefended border and the amount of illicit traffic that occurs between the U.S. and Canada, everything from top-of-the-line kitchen appliances to prescription drugs.
The payload in this novel is illegal guns – from America to Canada. This novel was written 20 years before Trump’s assault on our nation and the insult of 51st state designation. But all of the precursors are there, most notably the introduction of the gun culture to Toronto.
The author relies on character development to the detriment of other aspects of the story. Alex McKnight, the lead character, is a retired Detroit cop on disability. Hamilton does spend some time on innate evil and unrequited good, but he forsakes any attempt at explaining the underlying economics and politics of the situation. It is all about Alex McKnight.
The author is a smooth storyteller, but the tale comes across a little flat.
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Excerpts from the novel:
DETROIT – I was getting close to Detroit now. My old hometown, the ring of suburbs on three sides, including out farther and farther into the farmlands. All these sleepy little crossroads turned into boomtowns now, with all the new houses, the strip malls. I saw the places without recognizing them.
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN – I’d run into my share of domestic violence before, back in Detroit. A beat cop sees it all the time. There’s only so much you can do about it. You can arrest the man, talk to the woman, help her with her options. You may feel like bouncing the man off the wall a few times, but you can’t.
I wasn’t a cop anymore.
– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.
