First, I want to state that I am amazed this book is self-published (or perhaps small press?) it is so squeaky clean, editing wise. I’ve been reading quite a few indie books and they are usually peppered with typos (lately, even some of the major press books are). Bravo.

As for the meat of the book…This book was very different than I expected it to be in many ways. I came in thinking Mystery-Thriller (as mystery is one of my favorite genres) but in my opinion it is much more Thriller-Thriller. True, there was a final moment of realization, but I felt that there was too little time with the major protagonist pursuing these answers to make this book a mystery. There was some 'mystery' that the characters had to figure out, too, but the author already supplies it to the reader, building tension, but not so much Mystery. Tension, boy, this book has a lot of that. Not a dull moment. And violence too, it holds no punches (ahem, literally).

Enrico Antiporda did something I found very unique with his perspective; he tells the story from pretty much every character’s perspective (it was almost third party omniscient). In some scenes he jumps perspectives constantly. This creates very, very believable characters, I mean: all the characters are believable, the newspaper vendor, the bad guy’s cousin, the unnamed FBI agents on surveillance—each minor character had a thoroughly thought out personality. He creates an intricate web of personalities which steer the smaller details of the plot. But, character driven? I'm not so sure. I felt the major plotline was more the driving force in this book. However, the plotline was very elaborate as well, and I might have otherwise had a hard time believing it, but with this intricate web of well conceived characters I believed the story to the end. The only downside I found to this type of narrative is at a few times I got a bit confused with who was thinking/speaking.

Also, because this book has such believable characters I felt icky when reading about hate-crimes from the aggressor’s perspective; and, yes, the first half of this book fearless faces very heavy racial issues; it was almost hard for me to read. But I was relieved to figure out that this book is completely anti-racism. And, after about halfway through the book the issues become much more major-political in my opinion. The ending was definitely more major-political scale (and exciting!).

In sum: This book is a fast paced thriller with a unique narrative style that fearlessly faces heavy racial issues.
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