In “A Stolen Season” and “Trouble,” notable authors give readers disparate thrills while dealing with the same theme. Both Steve Hamilton and Jesse Kellerman respectively relate the stories of good Samaritans who save lives and then are forced to wrestle with the unexpected and sometime deadly results of good deeds gone bad.
Kellerman is the new kid on the block with his second stand-alone thriller. Kellerman does enjoy having an unparalleled family pedigree since both his mother, Faye, and father, Jonathan, are best-selling novelists. With a stellar education from Harvard and Brandeis, and with his first writing experience as a playwright, Jesse Kellerman delivers a strong psychological punch. His first novel, “Sunstroke,” was received with enthusiastic reviews, and “Trouble” seems destined for an even loftier reception.
Kellerman’s young protagonist is Jonah Stem, a medical student, and his portrayal of the life of a medical student rings true with vivid detail. Perhaps the fact that Kellerman’s wife is a medical student helps to lend credence to his descriptions.
When “Trouble” opens, Jonah is walking the city streets after his shift in the early-morning hours when he comes upon a stabbing in progress. While saving the damsel in distress, Eve Jones, Jonah accidentally kills the disturbed attacker. This throws Jonah’s life into an untenable situation involving the police, the media and the second-guessing of his co- workers and supervisors.
At home, Jonah lives with his roommate of seven years, Lance, a trust- fund recipient who moves from passion to passion until his interest wanes. Currently Lance is a film student working on a “selfumentary.” As part of this process he is placing cameras all over their apartment to record their daily lives, and these tapes provide startling evidence and help save Jonah.
Jonah is a good young man on a quiet path to a life of service as a physician. Jonah’s parents and only sister are professionals, lawyers and doctors. This is not the first time Jonah has acted with honor in his young life. Hannah Richter, his former love, who has sunk into the depths and ravages of schizophrenia, still receives a weekly visit from Jonah.
When Eve shows up on Jonah’s doorstep to express her thanks, life as he knows it is over. Using third-person narrative, Kellerman records Jonah’s attempts to reclaim his life from an insane, sinister force.
In “A Stolen Season,” Hamilton places his hero, Alex McKnight, in a parallel situation, although in a much more remote location. Hamilton has written another action-packed, compelling mystery that pushes Alex over his moral edge. In the wilds of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Hamilton has created a cast of homey if somewhat violent characters. Despite their faults, or maybe because of them, they are heroes.
In his seventh book, the accomplished Hamilton delivers a lively and intense read, with a lot of the drama taking place outdoors. As the story opens it is a frigid, foggy July Fourth and Alex is hanging out with his friend Leon when a powerful boat operated by incapacitated and ignorant partygoers crashes onto submerged pilings. Alex and his friends manage to pull three men out of the water and save their lives.
Alex is a retired policeman from Detroit, whose father owned and hand-built the cabins near Lake Superior where Alex now lives. After the death of his partner and being severely injured, Alex escaped to the isolation of the far north. Now for the first time in a long time things are going well for him. Since New Year’s Alex has found love with Natalie Reynaud, an officer with the Ontario Provincial Police.
Natalie is working undercover in Toronto trying to infiltrate a gang of gun runners. Things are not as they seem with her investigation, and complications ensue. Not the least important result is the entanglement of the men whom Alex rescued. As Alex and his friends try to deal with the results of their good deeds, Natalie is plunged into an international dilemma. When the story ends with a crashing and traumatic series of events, several threads running through Alex’s life are either hanging or severed and the choices Alex makes change him forever.
Both Hamilton and Kellerman have created sympathetic characters who are surrounded by interesting people with compelling settings. The authors then place their heroes in situations that grab the imagination and take readers on the characters’ terrifying and dangerous journeys. The authors explore the immediate and long-term effects of their heroes’ impetuous actions, which reveal their strong ethical beliefs that spurred them to act without thought to their own safety.
Readers of both urban- and youth- orientated dramas, as well as those who are attracted by the seasoned adventurers and wild locales, can enjoy these authors. Hamilton excels in his depiction and sense of place, while Kellerman plumbs the psychological terrors of a stalker.
Leslie Doran is a freelance writer in Durango.
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A Stolen Season
By Steve Hamilton
St. Martin’s, 290 pages, $22.95
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Trouble
By Jesse Kellerman
Penguin, 368 pages, $24.95
