From Publishers Weekly
Set a few years in the future, Jackson's fiction debut zeroes in on a small Montana town squeezed by economic strife and sharply curtailed civil liberties. Ben Trinity, a former English professor, hitchhikes into the hamlet of Redemption hoping to start fresh. A prime suspect in a major terrorist act, Trinity was jailed and tortured by the Homeland Security agency but never tried, and is now part of a government test program involving the release and surveillance of terrorist suspects (there are many such suspects). His presence in this small town where residents have little tolerance for anything straying from the straight and narrow, causes almost instant chaos when his cover is blown. In the aftermath, Trinity must decide whether to continue to take orders from the government, or rouse himself and try to clear his name. The futuristic mood (serious fuel shortages, microchip implantations) is uneven, but Jackson does a fine job with the alarmism and base behavior of mob mentality, and Trinity's ups and downs come through convincingly.
(Oct.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Ben Trinity, stranded in tiny Redemption, Montana, isn't just another drifter whose luck ran out in a snowstorm: he's a terrorist. Or is he? Though he was imprisoned and tortured for his alleged role in a bombing, he was never tried. With Homeland Security still monitoring his every move, Trinity takes a job in a diner and tries to avoid trouble. But when a suspicious deputy digs up his past, Trinity's friends dwindle to a precious few. Jackson's novel, set in the near future, gives us a chilling glimpse of an America where the war on terror has been won—by the terrorists. And Redemption's residents are too broke and worried to think much about their vanishing civil rights. The plotting and pacing are swift and solid, and the rural setting is an inspired choice, as writers often unnecessarily equate Big Brother with big cities. If it's a bit preachy at the end—there's no need to spell out points that the story makes eloquently—this offers compulsive reading, seeming a lot less like fiction than it really should. Graff, Keir
