Blind Fall: A Novel [Mass Market Paperback]

 

 

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Part mystery and part story of remorse, redemption and forgiveness, Blind Fall stretches from the battlefields of Iraq to the working class trailer parks of the Southern Californian Inland Empire, and in the process moves into the dark recesses of murder, blackmail, and the trenchant homophobia that exists in the American military.

Although growing up in less than salubrious conditions, twenty-something John Houck prides himself on the fact that he's become an honorable and trust-worthy Marine. John's hero and mentor in this journey has been Captain "Lightning" Mike Bowers of the respected Force Recon Company. It is in Iraq, caught in the blinding flash of IED, that Mike unceremoniously saves John's life with Mike taking the full brunt of the attack.

The incident permanently cements their friendship, but in the aftermath, Bowers has lost an eye, his body permanently scarred after all the mayhem and chaos that has been bought before them. In the end, it is always Lightning Mike who had reached out to John like something close to a brother, who has seen a guy hanging on the periphery, and doubting their mission, had brought his friend into the fold.

Barely an hour before they had left on their mission, John had read an email informing him that his younger brother Dean had suddenly committed suicide, an email written by Patsy, his older sister whom he had not spoken to in ten years. And as John tries to cope, both incidents - Mike's injuries and Dean's death - echo throughout his mind collecting grit and blood, adding to all of the loss around him.

It isn't until John is back home in Devore that he realizes that Mike had acted like a man with no interest in seeing him again. But as he spends his days thinking about his brother while eking out an existence in his trailer, John realizes that he needs to see Mike again, perhaps in an attempt to turn his gratitude into action.

So to Owensville John travels, with a feeling of helplessness and dissatisfaction, where he finds a shirtless Mike Bowers tied to a metal bed frame in his house, both arms, his legs splayed in front of him on the blood-stained sheets: a seated crucifixion. In an instant, John sees a universe covered in blood-spilled violence, happening just as easily in Owensville as in the streets of Ramadi. When a tall slender fellow appears, by the name of Alex Martin and tells John that he's Mike's lover, John is blindsided into a maelstrom of conflicting emotions. For all these years Bowers had been lying to him.

From here Blind Fall takes a dramatic turn as only John take solace in the fact that the horrors of war could sometimes protect him from the agony of the present. But John must also uncover the mystery of who has murdered Mike, while also protecting the young Alex who he comes to realize is his own worst enemy.

As the plot steamrolls along the outcome hanging on a life insurance policy, a feeling of sadness that permeates this book - a gay military men so often marginalized by society and of the straight men who can sometimes demonize them out of bigotry and fear.

Author Christopher Rice brings the world of Southern California and the deserts of Arizona to life, beautifully embedding his characters in a stunning sense of time and place. John is forced to confront his own personal demons in search of reason for his own homophobia, where everywhere he turns there is destruction, a brother and a best friend dead, himself now on the run, a sister who resents him.

Repaying his debt to Mike means protecting Alex no matter what cost, even later, when John - and Alex are branded fugitives when they are inexplicably connected to Mike's gruesome murder. This is a indeed a mesmeric story, Rice imbuing his novel with a terror that John might fail utterly and allow Alex to slip through his fingers, into a" blind fall" even as the ghost of Mike Bowers and his choices continue to hang over them all. Mike Leonard March 08.

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