The Premise
Chase is a young man who lost his parents as a boy and was brought into a life of crime by his grandfather Jonah. Still in his teens, he decides to go straight and build a life as a law-abiding citizen. But this is a crime story, and a shady past is never far behind.
In Review
Many of the elements that Piccirilli writes into Cold Spot will be familiar to anyone who has read crime fiction or watched crime cinema. What distinguishes this book is Piccirilli's ability to put you into his protagonist's head and make you observe criminal acts and behavior from a different perspective. Chase is someone who looks at all the angles in a situation, and Piccirilli captures this outlook with narration that focuses on Chase's detailed view in a conversational tone of voice. Consider this description of a crew that Chase is after:
"They weren't a twitchy bunch but there would be rules to follow. No matter what though, even if they figured the cops were on the line, they'd eventually have to answer. It was Marisa's phone, they'd need to find out what happened to her and see how badly their action was blown." (166)
This clear prose works like a magnet throughout the story, drawing you into Chase's corner and offering a glimpse of doings that most citizens only see through fiction. And this is the beauty of Piccirilli's play: this is, of course, fiction, and yet another opportunity for workaday folks to spy on the people who do the things they aren't supposed to and get away with it. It's just that Piccirilli's voice comes across sounding so confident, so sure, that it's hard to shake the sense that stuff like this is really going down, somewhere across the city from where you're reading; and that someone like Chase is involved, sizing everything up, reaching inside himself for that "cold spot" (both a lovely idea and literary metaphor) that will see him through.
Making this tale even more seductive is Chase himself. He can jack cars and fix them like no one else, move with above-average speed, fight with tenacity, and read people with an insight into human vanity that is outstanding for someone his age. This latter trait stems from a sense of self-awareness that makes him a realist, and keeps him cool while others around him latch onto a role and try to act out the accepted script. He leaves the criminal world because he learns how much violence and hate he can take; and when he find himself going back to it, he has to reconcile this limitation with his desire to mete revenge against those who destroyed someone dear to him.
Here again, Piccirilli uses a common theme: that of the compassionate criminal. But he does this with such good writing that any sense of the ordinary is soon lost, and the story unfolds like a favorite season, bringing surprises and breathes of air that, somehow, just taste right. I adore this man's work, and will read everything he's done in the years to come. Readers who appreciate craft should seek him out.
7/15/08
