Do Some Damage discussion

Ok, I'm Corrine-d out for the moment, but I'm curious what everyone thought of Ben.

In an earlier draft, there was no dead wife, and the impetus for Ben to move to SC was quite a bit different. How would a change in his backstory change your reactions to Ben?

I can't imagine Ben without a dead wife. So much of who he is seems built on not just the violence, but the randomness of the violence. The irrational, pointless, no-answer-ness of her death.
His being seems predicated on the "why" of crime. And yet, he's propelled by a crime that ain't got no "why" to it. Fascinating.

I actually thought Ben was the least engaging character in the book of the main players. I could just as easily have seen his motivation for moving having been predicated on a similar random crime that didn't involve his wife, but that he was near / in the middle of and had not been able to stop. Or perhaps something like his having misidentified a suspect in a high profile case and causing someone to commit suicide over false accusations (or freeing a suspect who ended up being guilty and killing again).

The "dead wife" angle isn't as important to me as is Ben's general feeling of having "lost his edge" and being filled with doubt, both of which could be accomplished through other setups. Ben's major accomplishment IMO wasn't getting over his dead wife, it was getting his edge back, getting his confidence back as a law enforcement officer