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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
This Engrossing Novel Delivers a Satisfying Punch, February 16, 2003
Harry Rane's longtime friend, Bobby, has gotten himself into deep trouble and now he's bringing that trouble to Harry. He needs help cleaning it up. Once a New Jersey State Police trooper, Harry still has some valuable contacts and knows how to use them. But Bobby's trouble is with an organized crime figure, Eddie Fallon. Eddie's not a good person to mess with. It seems Bobby figured that maybe he could strike it rich with a one-time drug deal. Unfortunately, he's come up short --- short of the drugs and about $50,000. And Eddie isn't a real patient man. Harry has some pretty good moves, but he also has one very bad one, a near-fatal one. It turns out that Fallon's wife is Harry's ex-girlfriend. Eighteen years ago, she left, pregnant with Harry's child and never returned --- until now. Harry's judgment has been impeccable up to this point, but Cristina is just too tempting to resist. To complicate matters further, members of the department he once was a part of are breathing down his neck over some bodies that have turned up. Wallace Stroby has hit the mystery scene like a steam engine racing along at full throttle. He knows how to grab your attention and never let go. Fast-paced and engrossing, THE BARBED-WIRE KISS delivers a satisfying punch. It came to a nice, tidy wrap-up and I was pretty happy with it. Then I realized I still had 20 or 30 pages left in the book. Stroby just doesn't let go. Even at the last page, I had the feeling it wasn't quite over yet. Harry has another chance, but what's in his future from here? I wouldn't mind seeing where he goes and what he does --- and soon. You've just gotta love him, especially when he's throwing caution and reason to the wind and letting his heart and mouth guide him. I read, cringing, wincing and shaking my head. I think I even cried out "Don't do THAT, Harry" a couple times. This is an exceptional first novel. If you love a mystery and crave action, give THE BARBED-WIRE KISS a few hours. You won't need more than that and you'll agree it was time very well spent. Note: Strong language, violence, minimal sexual content. --- Reviewed by Kate Ayers
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Drugs, Violence, Death And A New Beginning, April 30, 2003
I picked this book up to read because the title intrigued me. It also provided the adventure of reading an unknown author's first novel and it took place in New Jersey, where I lived for over twenty-two years. I was not disappointed. The author is a journalist for the New Jersey Star Ledger and so well captures the aspects of the areas and the lives which he writes about that at times they become stereotypes. It is not a happy book, and the characters are not happy people (even excluding the many who are killed during the course of the book). It is spare and gritty with a reasonable amount of violence and profanity, but these are used for the sake of realism, not gratuitously. It is a novel about drugs and the mob, but also friendship, fate, love, a philosophy of life, second chances and barbed wire kisses (which finally get defined near the conclusion in a wonderfully appropriate touch). The plot is simplicity itself. Harry Rane is a retired NJ State Trooper. His wife died recently, and while in mourning he almost got killed while on duty and is now drifting aimlessly through life. His high school friend Bobby Fox comes to him for help when he is left owing $50,000 to Eddie Fallon, a small time gangster, when Jimmy Cortez, a casual friend who has drawn Bobby into a "one time easy money drug deal" disappears. Harry likes Bobby and his wife Janine and so agrees to help by talking to Eddie and trying to find Jimmy. Of course, complications soon ensue and violence results. A potentially major complication occurs when Harry unexpectedly learns that Eddie Fallon's wife Christina is an old high school sweetheart who left town years ago. Seeing Christina causes Harry to reevaluate his directionless life, and as additional violence ensues there is aforeboding sense that a tragic outcome is perhaps inevitable for many of the participants. This is a book that moves straight ahead and tells the story with only minor detours to fill in some necessary details. In addition, Harry's ruminations upon the meaning of his life, his friendship with Bobby, and his goals for the future were all very well integrated into the story and made his character come alive. The fact that Harry can feel a sense of accomplishment and redemption at the end of a story marked by so much death and violence without the conclusion feeling overly sentimental is a sign of how successful the author has been in creating a mood that keeps the reader interested. Thus, altough in many ways this is not at all typical of the type of books which I usually enjoy and rate highly, I found it so true to its goals that I felt that it deserved four stars. But be prepared for the despair of lives that often seem small and of little consequence, even to those who live them. But when you are through, you'll probably hope to meet Harry again in another book to learn what happened to him and how his life is progressing.
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Nothing Special, September 10, 2005
I need to put the brakes on some of the out-of-control rave reviews for this book. The plotting and prose are pedestrian, which is to say about as exciting as watching someone take an afternoon stroll. Yes, it's set in New Jersey, and it's not an awful book, but it has nothing to do with the wonderful insanity of "The Sopranos" or the bittersweet intensity of a Bruce Springsteen song. Harry Rane misses his wife and his job and drives around his niche of the Garden State in search of meaning, even if he doesn't say it in so many words. Then he gets involved in the troubles of a childhood friend, which leads to further complications involving an old lover, the consequences of which are obvious to anyone who's ever read a mystery/crime novel. Which is what pretty much lets the air out of any tension Stroby's set up; when you're that far ahead of the character, it's difficult to be engaged.
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