A WELL WRITTEN, COMPELLING READ WITH A SURPRISE ENDING. RECOMMENDED!
Without giving anything away, Kelly, a mailman and part time tough guy, embarks on a journey of discovery to find his destiny in apparently violent Southern California. The excellent dialogue is slick and feels natural with a humorous and occasionally dark tinge as Kelly struggles with his personal demons and those who want to use him for their own purposes. The mysterious Mr Bat, a host of beautiful women - most of whom are cleverer than Kelly - and the almost adolescent but patently dangerous Tristan, all present Kelly with choices that will take him from his mundane job as a mailman to something else entirely. He resists, of course, but he is a strong personality with a penchant for riding to the rescue and the reader feels that there is something inexorable and inevitable about his journey and his destination.
The plot is twisty and the reader (me at least) has no idea where it was going, but there is an edge to Kelly that keeps one reading and the eventual denouement is unexpected, very definitely dark-edged and coming from an unlikely source that I would defy anyone to guess. There are occasional violent scenes, but Eric Weule handles them dextrously without making the mistake of dwelling on or over describing them in gory detail. Unlike many contemporary thrillers these scenes feel totally natural and not just there for the visceral thrill.
All in all, a laid back thriller with a protagonist who is sometimes hero, sometimes anti-hero, but definitely his own man, or so he thinks. Obviously, this is the first in a series of books about the quite unusual Kelly and his off-the-wall approach to life, love and the pursuit of vintage American muscle cars. I can empathise with the latter since seeing the movie "Vanishing Point" and consequently lusting after a 1970 Dodge Challenger! I'd like to read the next part of the Kelly saga.