Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Three Days to Die by John Avery


A middle school student finds himself pulled into the morass of a criminal crew who are violently robbing banks. 

Aaron is in a less than stellar family situation with an abusive step father intimidating his mother and terrorizing Aaron.   Aaron's escapism is with Willy, his British accented sidekick.  Together they pull pranks and roam the streets trying to avoid going home.   Aaron blunders into a criminal gang and is suddenly an unwilling participant in violence.

Avery postulates some interesting things.  His web site states that he likes to put ordinary people into tense situations to see how they react.   Aaron exhibits some classic Stockholm characteristics as he bonds with several of the criminals. 

The gang members are a confusing melange with a very mixed background.   Needles appears to have been drawn in due to debt and desperation.   The "good" reasons for his criminal behavior are pale in comparison to the violence he helps to perpetuate.  

A white knight appears in the appearance of Michael who befriends Aaron and plays a minor part in the story.   Aaron's hyper-attractive mother scores the attention of Souther the psychopathic gang leader.  

The story had a lot of action but there was a lack of depth in some of the characters.   The overall feeling was a shallow but exciting story with some plausibility concerns.   I still enjoyed it.

Web site: http://www.johnaverybooks.com/


 This book may have been received free of charge from a publisher or a publicist. That will NEVER have a bearing on my recommendations.

No comments: