Title: Father Complex
Series: Hazard and Somerset: Arrow in the Hand: Book Four
Author: Gregory Ashe
Publisher: Self-Published
Length: 392 Pages
Category: Mystery/Suspense
Rating: 5 Stars
At a Glance: Father Complex is inarguably one of author Gregory Ashe’s most aptly titled books, as the father/son relationship is a dominant theme, and Ashe further penetrates the protective wall Hazard has built around himself. The father/son mirror is real and poignant, and watching Emery Hazard admit to being scared is a beautiful thing to witness.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Having a father can be hard. Being a good one might be even harder.
The call-out for the double homicide, when it comes, is a strange one: two men gunned down in a motel room, no witnesses, no real clues. Even stranger, the men were enemies, and no one seems to know why they were in that motel room together. And stranger still, people won’t stop calling John-Henry Somerset, telling him he needs to find some answers—preferably nice, easy ones—fast.
Hazard and Somers set out to learn what happened, but they quickly find themselves mired in shifting factions: the ultraconservative political machine of the Ozark Volunteers; a liberal activist group protesting the local gun show; a reclusive fundamentalist church; even a hint of Mexican drug cartels. The further they press their investigation, the clearer it becomes that the killer—or killers—wants something, and they’ll stop at nothing to get it.
As Hazard and Somers struggle to find the truth, they face trouble at home as well. Their foster-son, Colt, has received a letter from his estranged father, the same man who attacked Colt and Somers in their home. Worse, Colt seems open to more communication, which leaves Hazard grappling with his fears for Colt and his helplessness against a world that seems to be conspiring to take his foster-son away.
But when a pair of gunmen come after Hazard at home, two things are crystal clear: he’s going to get to the bottom of these murders, and he’ll do anything to keep his family together.
Review: Sometimes the most valuable lesson a person can take away from our parents is to unlearn, and the hardest thing to do is to unburden ourselves of all the baggage we carry into adulthood so we don’t unload it on our own kids. This is no easy feat for Emery Hazard, which he’s discovering the hard way, through lots of trial and painful error—that loving a child and wanting to do right by them and wanting the best for them breeds the fear that you’re failing them in every single way, and yet Hazard is unable to stop himself when things start to spiral. His actions become a self-fulfilling prophesy, and the paradox of this is deeply and sincerely heartrending, to watch him want to be a good dad, to love someone so fiercely, and then going about it in all the wrong ways.
Father Complex is inarguably one of author Gregory Ashe’s most aptly titled books, as the father/son relationship is a dominant theme, and Ashe further penetrates the protective wall Hazard has built around himself. This allows Emery to see his relationship with his own father through the lens of the tenuous bond between him and his foster son, Colt. The father/son mirror is real and poignant, and watching Emery Hazard admit to being scared is a beautiful thing to witness. Watching him apologize is becoming more common; now, the goal is to break the cycle of actions and reactions he’s constructed out of a sense of self-preservation.
Colt is caught in that impossible place between loving Emery, wanting to be a part of the Hazard-Somerset family, being caught up in his biological father’s machinations, and Cole knowing he could be taken away from Emery and John-Henry at a moment’s notice. His deep-seated insecurities and inability to trust that he’s got people who he can rely on are portrayed so touchingly and painfully and realistically. Colt makes unilateral decisions because he’s had to over the course of his short life in order to survive, and seeing this play out in each book has been a study in anxiety. But Hazard and Somers keep showing up for their son, and I love to see it.
The mystery in Father Complex is, as always, full of unexpected turns and shocking revelations. Wahredua remains a character in and of itself. It has chewed up and spat out the people who populate it, in the way of so many conservative Midwestern cities and towns—places that may seem ordinary though, upon closer inspection, are anything but. Two dead men, one killer, few clues, and an unclear motive for the double homicide leads Hazard and Somers deep into the world of guns, gun runners, white supremacists, and an extremist cult. The toxic father/son relationship is also relative to their case, and to complicate the investigation further, Emery and John have plenty of suspects and not one but two people who confess to the crime. Hazard and Somers working a case together, bouncing theories and ideas off each other, bantering and arguing, never disappoints. Speaking of banter, a couple of other investigators show up as well, and, as Emery would say, they were . . . here . . . and it was delightful to see them bring their special brand of havoc to Hazard and Somers’ doorstep, seeing as how they’re best friends and all.
The April evening was the color of crushed lilacs that darkened to the bruised throat of the horizon, and the air still smelled like gunpowder and antibiotic ointment and what Hazard could smell of himself, the lingering sourness of his flop sweat.
Gregory Ashe’s ability to paint a scene is always flawless. The quiet beauty of a spring sunset drawn so vividly, gracefully, and yet an act of violence ruins it so articulately. This sort of descriptive writing is prevalent, sometimes elegant, sometimes bloody and gruesome, sometimes heartbreaking. Whatever the case, there’s a mental picture readers can draw from the words, and it enriches the reading and the investment in what’s happening on every page.
As the final book in this Hazard and Somerset collection approaches, there is much to anticipate. Somers has a toxic workplace problem brewing that needs to be addressed with at least one of his detectives, and as long as Colt’s father is there to make trouble, trouble he will make. Of course, as this is Wahredua, there are sure to be more murders to solve, more chaos to restrain, more politics to wade through, and more shenanigans to navigate. In short, everything we’ve come to expect from this series and its characters is yet to come.
You can buy Father Complex here:
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