4.5⭐️

” Secrets that are shared but still not understood remain secret.”

The life of our protagonist Enzi, the child of accomplished immigrant parents takes a tragic turn after he loses his mother and his father’s alcoholism ultimately lands him in the system. Dyslexic, alone and without any support, he eventually becomes a runaway at the age of fourteen, drifting from place to place and from job to job. Taught by his mother to study patterns instead of the individual letters and numbers that he found so difficult to follow, he is able to hone his analytical and mathematical abilities. His perseverance results in his becoming a self-taught software programmer, even starting his own company with a friend which is later bought by a larger corporation, with whom he negotiates a lucrative employment opportunity for himself.

When we meet Enzi, he is employed in the capacity of Director with the larger tech company but is also in cahoots with a Tsai, a shady businessman who recruits him as a hacker. During this time he also meets a young artist Kaori, a recent acquaintance who he bails out of jail after she has an altercation with her ex-boyfriend and his current girlfriend. He befriends her and gradually they confide in one another, with Enzi also taking her to New York where he meets up with Tsai. Kaori is troubled and expresses herself for the most part through her art, which Enzi initially finds intriguing but as the narrative progresses we see how Kaori’s obsession with her ex-boyfriend, increasingly erratic behavior and tendency to document everything and everyone she encounters through her art reveals a darker side to her. His illegal dealings with Tsai who refuses to let Enzi back out of their agreement, Kaori’s instability and his own demons push Enzi into a complex web of corruption, murder and deceit, endangering not only himself but also those associated with him. It is up to Enzi to figure his way out of the darkness he is thrust into.

Paper Targets: Art Can Be Murder by Steve Saroff is an impressive debut with an intriguing premise and a smartly crafted narrative that is shared in the first person from Enzi’s PoV. Saroff’s characters are well-fleshed out and his writing is superb. Enzi is a complicated character and the author does an exceptional job of capturing his brilliance, his inner struggles and his introspectiveness. The author’s vivid descriptions of the Montana setting and his depiction of Enzi’s relationship with nature are captivating. It took me a while to fully engage with the story but as the narrative progresses, the pace quickens and the tensions build, rendering this novel hard to put down.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this novel. All opinions expressed here are my own.

“Let me be a janitor and a laborer again. Let me be happy poor. The times when it was enough to have any working car, cash for a tank of gas, with enough left over for a bag of groceries. Then driving on a Western highway, the mountains in the distance, and thinking, “That is where I will sleep tonight.” Freedom from ambition with the sky opening ahead. True wealth.” ( )

Advanced by a publisher specializing in what they call “new noir”, this book is different and may be for a select audience. It tells the story of the evolution of a tortured young man into a criminal as he falls for an unstable artist. Set in Big Sky Country, which Saroff captures well, the writing is beautifully lyrical with observations of life that are painfully astute.

For those who enjoy literary fiction and want to read something unique while also learning a bit about how financial crimes are committed in our computerized world, this will be a satisfying read. There is a lot of food for thought here.

Thanks to Flooding Island Press for a copy of the book for review. ( )

Paper Targets: Art Can Be Murder by Steve S. Saroff
Story starts with a young man who has challenges and he travels around to different jobs. He especially loves learning things with numbers, at the library.
He's got a severe connection to numbers and they are like words to him.
Love all the computer and coding and why things are not what they seem.
Enzi meets a woman at a party and much later she calls from jail asking to be bailed out.
He takes her with him when traveling for work and he is drawn to her and understands with help from the bondsman what she had done...
Some parts are a bit creepy for me, but it goes with the story line.
Plot is good as there are many unpredictable circumstances and events in this book. Kept me on my toes with all the computer knowledge I have. Great read, bit of everything for everybody. Love travel, computer, library, how numbers fit in and the relationships over the years and the jobs he has done. Hiking, Money, greed and some bad choices take us a path of twists and turns.
Would definitely read more works from this author! ( )

"A wonderfully written thriller with Big Sky country as a setting." - Kirkus Reviews

“Montana Voice podcast host Saroff debuts with a novel about an enigmatic loner who attracts strange characters as he tries to do good—or repair the bad he has done.

Enzi is much like Saroff: a runaway and a dyslexic who started with nothing. But he discovers a talent for—and a fascination with—math and winds up a successful computer coder with his own company. But he has come under the sway of Tommy Tsai, a very smooth and very, very bad guy, and gets drawn into cybercrime. At the same time, he posts bail for, and falls half in love with, a young woman named Kaori, an unbalanced Japanese artist prone to not just violent mood swings, but violence itself. Halfway through the novel, the Kaori story takes a back seat to Enzi’s desperate fight to break Tsai’s hold over him. It’s unwise to try to walk away from Tommy Tsai, who has murderous contacts, and true to thriller conventions, the plot involves a race against time. The story is set in Montana (mostly Missoula), and Enzi can wax eloquent about the surrounding mountains and streams. That’s one way his tale has something of the spirit of Hemingway stories like ‘Up in Michigan.’ Another is that his spare—for the most part—prose seems designed to step out of the way but is arresting in itself. But Saroff is also capable of lyric flights and striking metaphors….” - Kirkus Reviews ( )