I’m a recent fan of William Lashner’s Victor Carl series, so I’m still picking up books in that run. Thankfully, Lashner is incredibly easy to read. I’ll be caught up soon. Even though Lashner has laid his series to rest (hopefully only temporarily), his writing career continues. Given his latest book, Blood And Bone, he’s going to be just as successful at standalone thriller novels as he was in his series.
I don’t know what went into the decision to shelve Victor Carl for the time being, but I hated to see that hero go. Victor wasn’t a superman. He was simply a guy trying to survive in a hostile landscape where everyone seemed to ultimately turn against him. He has a lot in common with Kyle Byrne, the protagonist of Lashner’s latest novel.
Kyle is 26 and is the ultimate slacker. He doesn’t know what to do with his life, doesn’t know where he’s going, and seems to know even less about where he came from. This book is about issues between fathers and sons, and that’s an issue dear to my heart both as a father and as a son. Fathers and sons seem to get what should be simple things screwed up more often than anyone else in the world.
I felt Kyle’s pain about not knowing his father’s true story. I don’t know that many sons know their fathers’ true stories, and that theme is one that is played solidly throughout this book. I also enjoyed the fact that Kyle played little league and college baseball, and was something of a superstar. And he was always the guy looking over his shoulder to see if his father had made the game. His disappointment was true, and is something that I think every son has experienced some of at one point or another.
Kyle’s own troubles magnify quickly, and I was drawn into the story in a heartbeat. The opening chapter of him as a 12-year old forced to attend the funeral of the father he barely knew hooked me. The feelings he had of being totally lost during this event are easily understandable, and the results were amazingly emotional.
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