Saturday, May 23, 2009

Lonesome Point-Ian Vasquez

Lonesome Point
Ian Vasquez
Minotaur, Jun 9 2009, $24.95
ISBN: 9780312378103

In Miami medical technician Leo Varela works at the psych ward of Jefferson Memorial Hospital Mental Health Annex. The pay stinks and actually is an abomination when you consider what Leo and his peers do. He relaxes when he can even on the job smoking weed and writing poetry.

Leo’s older brother Patrick is the influential Miami-Dade County Counselor running for mayor in a particularly nasty campaign even by Miami’s dirty standards. Both brothers have come a long way from their homeland Belize and even further from their father’s illegal business ventures. Everything changes as the past arrives at the hospital. Freddy Robinson, just released from prison, asks Lee to abduct a patient elderly Mr. Massini as his former associates want a chat with him. Lee wants to say no as even his dead end job is better than working with friends of his father, but Freddy knows the dark deadly secret the siblings left in Belize.

This exciting thriller starts off at an incredible pace with Freddy visiting Leo at the hospital, but loses some momentum about halfway in as the plot is never embellished upon from that terrific opening sequence. Still the seemingly opposite brothers tied together by more than DNA are solid characters who seem on the surface total opposites, but in a crisis react somewhat similar. Although the story line is thin, fans will enjoy Ian Vasquez’s overall entertaining tale

Harriet Klausner