The Hate Collective

by James Powell

Three strangers. Each one a victim of crime, each one let down by the system. They meet at a support group full of other disaffected individuals, and that's where life suddenly gets interesting. Realising that society will never help them, they decide to take action. An intricate plan is formed, a plan which means that together, they will get revenge on those who have wronged them. Can such an audacious idea ever succeed? How will the group function when things get tough? As loyalties are tested, and events seem to spiral out of control, one crucial question is raised. Will vengeance ever really take the pain away?

163 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 4, 2011

About the author

James Powell (born 1932) is a Canadian author of mystery and humorous short stories.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Reviews

[V.S. Kemanis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The prose in 'The Hate Collective' has a matter-of-fact, relentless and driving quality that reminded me of Kafka. I had to keep reading to the end. The themes of revenge, powerlessness, victimization, and ineffectiveness of the criminal justice system were very admirably explored. The violence was understated enough to make this work palatable for someone like me, who doesn't like gore. This is truly good psychological fiction, which could be excellent, of four or five star quality, if not for a few things. As some of the reviewers have said, the ending is abrupt. I liked very much the idea of the ending, and think it is the appropriate ending, but it needed a bit more fleshing out by approaching Michael's realizations in a more extended, subtle way. Another drawback was formatting. This work should be reformatted to avoid annoying problems with paragraph breaks, and should be copyedited to remove typos. Otherwise, I very much enjoyed this and got a lot out of it.

[rachel kitner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Confusing start

The beginning was beyond confusing. Terms were British which gave descriptions less impact due to not knowing the American comparison. Very dark story however shows how some people become so engrossed with revenge.

[Vincent Revilla · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading it, but the ending was very poorly handled. An appeal to the author: I don't want to make up an ending that suits my fancy because you decided you were done.