Cherry Bomb

by Steve Liskow

Anywhere else, fifteen will get you twenty. Along the Turnpike, fifteen will get you dead. When beautiful fifteen-year-old Stacy Kendall disappears, her wealthy parents hire Hartford PI Zach Barnes to find her. Barnes fears that the girl is dead…until a brunette who looks like her shows up in a security video outside a sleazy motel room. Inside that room, a man lies dead. Overnight, Stacy turns from a kidnap victim to a murder suspect—and her parents’ worst nightmare. To save the girl, Barnes invades a thriving trade in teen sex-trafficking, blackmail, and murder. Getting in is easy. Now he has to get back out.CHERRY BOMB is one of those dark crime fiction novels that will make you hunger for the sequel. Liskow writes with the grace and elegance of a master, and both the story and the characters will haunt you. Set in the seamy underbelly of Hartford, Connecticut where an affluent teen girl goes missing, CHERRY BOMB is a welcome and highly recommended addition to the PI tradition.Libby Fischer Hellmann, Author of EASY INNOCENCESteve Liskow weaves a tightly knit web as irresistible and diabolical as the Berlin Turnpike itself. Along the way he takes you deeper into the hidden corners of that roadway and to the blackest edges of humanity. CHERRY BOMB grabs you and pulls you down into the abyss of this enticing underworld. The only way out is to turn and savor every delicious page.Raymond Bechard, Author of THE BERLIN A TRUE HISTORY OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN AMERICA

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2012

Reviews

[Michael Sherer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a lot of people on Facebook, I don’t actually know many of my “friends.” So, when I asked Steve Liskow for a favor recently, it came as a surprise to me that he has nine novels and counting and a dozen or more short stories under his belt. In return for my favor, Steve asked for quid pro quo—take a look at one of his books.

I picked Cherry Bomb, one of his early books, for a couple of reasons. Since it’s part of a series, I wanted to start near, if not at, the beginning. And how good the writing is in an early book usually indicates whether an author will have staying power and get even better with experience.

If you haven’t read any of Steve Liskow’s books you’re to be forgiven—he’s probably one of the better genre writers you’ve never heard of. In Cherry Bomb (second in the Zach Barnes series), Liskow’s use of present tense, the book’s sardonic, wise-guy tone, and his character descriptions immediately tell you this is a hard-boiled PI tale.

You might wonder why authors continue to emulate Hammett and Chandler, when few can pull it off. But rather than a poorly written paean to the masters of the genre, Liskow does a more than credible job of giving us a likeable but flawed hero in Barnes, an ex-cop, a tightly-knit cast of quirky friends who, despite occasional misgivings, will stand by Barnes through thick and thin, and a well-told story that tweaks our sense of social outrage at the same time it offers the thrills and chills of a good crime novel. A few twists and turns along the way, and the justice meted out at the end make it even more satisfying. The few nits I might pick aren’t worth mentioning.

I’m looking forward to adding his Woody Guthrie, Jr., series to my TBR pile. It pays to get to know your friends.

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not a bomb!

Great way to sit back and relax. You get drawn into the action and by the end of the book, you really empathize with the characters.