The Fury (A Henry Parker Thriller) [Paperback]

This is his latest in the series about Henry Parker, the newspaper reporter that seems to get himself into lots of trouble investigating his stories. I love this character, so well-defined and so likeable! You are always rooting for him. But what I really like most his Amanda, his girlfriend, and their verbal exchanges. She is so cool and smart and has such a way with words! If I might quote an example, which has nothing to do with the story, so I'm not giving anything away, but Amanda and Henry have just rented a car and are driving up to the Adirondacks, Amanda has plugged in her ipod and is scrolling through the songs.

"You know, isn't there some kind of rule stating that whoever drives gets to choose the music?"

"I think that law was considered outdated in the 1970s. Now the female in the car gets to choose the tunes."

"What if there's more than one woman in the car?" I asked.

"Then it goes to the most dominant female," she said drily.

It goes on, but you get the idea. I really like these characters, and the plots are great! I've read all of this series starting with The Mark, The Guilty, The Stolen, and now, The Fury. Each can stand alone, but you must read them in order to really enjoy how these characters grow and the author keeps getting better and better! I highly recommend this series, and hope you'll give them a try.

I recently had a conversation with an author --- a gentleman full to the brim with wit, intelligence and talent --- who put forth the proposition that the most wonderful thing in the world is the mass market paperback book. I agreed; these paperbacks cost but a few dollars, is available just about anywhere, provides several hours of entertainment, is quiet, does not require a power source, and can be taken literally anywhere.

It is the latter element --- portability --- that I found to be a blessing when reading THE FURY, which is the latest and, by far, the best of Jason Pinter's paperback series involving New York Gazette reporter Henry Parker. I picked up the book at a time when I was bopping around a bit. Once I started, I did not want to stop reading it. And, thankfully, I did not have to. I just brought it with me while waiting for appointments, standing in line, suffering through elevator music, and the like.

Pinter hits it out of the park with THE FURY. While the three previous Parker books have been great reads, this one takes it a step further as Pinter really gets into the soul of Henry Parker. It begins interestingly enough with Parker being accosted on his way home from work by an individual who he takes to be a common homeless person. Although a total stranger, the man seems to know Parker, who manages to extricate himself from the situation. Those of us who live and/or work in larger cities have experienced variations on this theme, have we not? But the change up from normal, everyday happenstance in THE FURY occurs a few hours later when Parker learns that the stranger, Stephen Gaines, has been found executed. The major surprise for Parker, however, is that Gaines was the brother whom Parker never knew he had, the result of a long-ago liaison between Parker's estranged father and a woman who was in the picture before Parker was born.

Naturally, Parker wants answers. He returns to his hometown of Bend, Oregon, accompanied by Amanda Davies, his wonderful and true-to-life significant other, for the purpose of confronting his father. James is a belligerent, hostile man whose ambition (or lack thereof) is in inverse proportion to his anger at the world. The reunion between father and son is awkward enough, but is made more so when James is inexplicably arrested by the Bend Police Department on a warrant from New York for the murder of Gaines.

Don't worry; there is an explanation here --- THE FURY is not a variation on THE COLORADO KID, a book littered with dead-ends and unanswered questions --- but I won't spoil the revelation for you. Suffice to say that Parker, in spite of their strained relationship, attempts to prove his father's innocence, demonstrating, as Davies notes, that he is not his father. In order to prove that James did not kill Stephen, however, Parker must solve the murder of the brother he never knew he had. Using his reporter's instincts and tenacity, he begins working backwards, picking up the trail of Gaines's life. While doing so, he uncovers an ingenious (and dangerous) criminal organization operating in plain sight in the heart of Manhattan, an organization that will remove anyone who might get in their way.

There is much to love in THE FURY. Pinter has been slowly but steadily building a supporting cast around Parker that manages not to overshadow the main character and yet remains memorable in their own individual ways. Pinter is also quite adept at sprinkling surprises throughout his narratives, and THE FURY is no exception: it is like unwrapping a Christmas present from beginning to end.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

"The Fury" is a taut, fast-paced mystery/thriller and a thoroughly enjoyable read. New York journalist Henry Parker is accosted by a skid row junkie with a secret to reveal ... a secret Parker doesn't take the time to hear. The very next day the junkie turns up dead, and to his consternation, Parker learns that the deceased was actually a half-brother Parker never knew existed. That's just the first shock in an avalanche of surprise that descends on Parker as he is forced to deal with a dysfunctional family he thought he had left behind in small town Oregon.

Author Jason Pinter keeps the action boiling throughout the narrative. The mystery's solution is a double-edged sword ... although Parker frees the man falsely accused of his brother's murder, his investigation has led him down an even more dangerous path and into the next book of the series, "The Darkness" (don't forget to read the Epilogue), which promises to be equally fascinating.

My only quibble with "The Fury" is that Mira Books, the publisher, needed to hire a more efficient proofreader. When you have an engrossing story that clips along like this one, it is jarring to suddenly be stopped in mid-paragraph by a mis-spelled word or a displaced sentence. Nevertheless, I highly recommend "The Fury", and liked it well enough that I plan to go back and catch up on the Henry Parker books which preceded it.