Acts of Nature

Acts of Nature

Jonathon King
Penguin (2007)
----
Schlagworte:
Freeman, Everglades (Fla.), Mystery & Detective, Ex-Police Officers, General, Max (Fictitious character), Mystery Fiction, Hurricanes, Thrillers, Suspense, Fiction

    From Publishers Weekly
    Florida, hurricanes and crime make a potent mix, as shown in Edgar-winner King's fifth entry in his Max Freeman PI series (_The Blue Edge of Midnight_, etc.). The vacation trip that Max and his cop girlfriend, Sherry Richards, take to his Everglades cabin and then to a friend's even more remote fishing camp turns into a struggle for survival when hurricane Simone shifts course unpredictably. A trio of unscrupulous thieves scavenging in the hurricane's wake and a pair of deadly security guards out to protect an illegal asset compound the danger. King vividly describes the hurricane's force and the different ways people respond to it. Sherry displays her grit and Max his ingenuity in a series of desperate gambles as the story builds to an explosive climax. This is a worthy addition to a Florida subgenre that includes Carl Hiaasen's
Stormy Weather
and Tim Dorsey's
Hurricane Punch
.
(Aug.)

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From
    Starred Review
The latest entry in the Max Freeman series (King won an Edgar with the debut of cop-turned-recluse Freeman in 2002's Blue Eye of Midnight) is every bit as polished and absorbing as its four predecessors, and it trumps King's own standards for description with a stunning depiction of a hurricane and its aftermath. A longtime Philadelphia crime reporter, King knows cops well, and it shows in the hero he has crafted. Ex-cop Freeman has been holed up in a former research shack deep in the Florida Everglades, accepting some detective work from an old lawyer friend but mostly hiding himself away from his horror at having killed a 12-year-old boy in a robbery attempt. Each novel inches Freeman away from his grief and into life; King is both a master plotter and an able psychologist. In his latest, Freeman and his new love, a South Florida detective, are enjoying a break at Max's retreat when a hurricane rips apart the shack, nearly killing Freeman's girlfriend. This novel is more adventure-suspense tale than mystery, as the couple struggles to survive, first against the hurricane and then against the villains who flood into the Everglades. King juxtaposes Max's first-person narration with third-person accounts of criminals in a breathtaking series of survival moves. Gripping. Fletcher, Connie

Acts of Nature
    Jonathon King

For my brother, James D., Semper Fi

ONE
    I have my arms around her, my chest pressed into her back, the tops of my thighs against her hamstrings, and I can feel a vibration from deep inside of her. Or maybe it is my own trembling. She has been quiet for what seems like an hour now, but time is hard to judge. There should be heat building from our shared body temperatures, so close together. But instead of a trickle of sweat between my shoulder blades there is a feeling of coldness on the back of my neck. It is a reaction that I recognize from too many police ops and I don’t have to ask Sherry if she is feeling the same thing. Clinging together against the kitchen counter in this unfamiliar Everglades encampment, we are about as physically close as a man and woman can be but it has nothing to do with love at the moment and everything to do with fear.
    “Jesus, Max,” she says when yet another violent crack, louder and more menacing than a rifle shot, rips the air inside the one-room cabin and we can only assume another piece of the structure has peeled off the roofline or the southern wall. Another gust of unholy wind attacks and the entire place shudders and the creak of wood twisting against its own grain sounds like an animal’s whine.
    “Jesus.”
    I squeeze Sherry harder, the muscles of my arms starting to ache from holding her so tightly but I cannot help it.
    “She’ll hang together, babe,” I say yet again, maybe trying to convince myself as much as Sherry. We have already heard parts of the second building or maybe the deck planking itself come ripping off, hard-bitten nails screeching as they were yanked at an angle from the trusses. We have heard sheets of the tin roofing being peeled off by the fingers of the wind and sent flipping away with the almost musical waffling sound of an old flopping saw blade and then the cymbal crash of it