Vigilantes East [Paperback]

Thomas F. Sheehan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2002

When their young daughters become lost or missing, sleep in alleys or strange beds, fall into the clutches of evil men, eventually survive merely as the matter of statistics, some fathers curse, flail at nothing, vent their anger in useless outbursts. But here in Vigilantes East one father, saddened and angry at his loss, organizes, recruits, strikes back at the forces of evil that lay in wait for too many of these young girls, including his own daughter. Pimps, drug dealers and pushers, slave camp czars, organized criminals and crooked cops, suddenly are targets of a new force, a force built on anger and vengeance.

Product Details

• Paperback: 173 pages
• Publisher: PublishAmerica (March 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1588517365
• ISBN-13: 978-1588517364
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,193,533 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The jewel of Saugus, Ma., September 20, 2003

By 

Guillaume Destot (France) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vigilantes East (Paperback)

Vigilantes East,
by Tom Sheehan

Corrupt cops, heroes with a faint trace of monomania, bereaved fathers,
mothers gone insane; the universe of Tom Sheehan's "Vigilantes East" is not
painted out in primary colours. The questions raised by the book are not
really new, fundamentally: where does the line between right and wrong lie
when you take justice in your hands? What legitimacy can there be in
executing even the most evil criminal without a trial? But,
extraordinarily, boundless hatred and boundless love coexist within
Sheehan's heroes, and they do in a way that's completely believable because
they do not contradict one another, they are subtly intertwined. There is
love first, the love of fathers and husbands, that surrounds and embraces
all their lives; and their hatred, on the other hand, is the momentum that
propels them on their self-appointed mission, a clinical, righteous hatred,
a hatred kept under control like an old-time steam machine.

"Vigilantes East" asks your guts a fundamental, primal question: what
would you do yourself? How far would your anger lead you? And how would you
carry on with your life if your most precious daughter disappeared into unreachable
depths of physical and psychological torture?

The courage of these simple, honest men, their dedication, is what makes
them heroes, but they carry on with shattered souls and through sleepless
nights. And yet they have allowed themselves to become killers, something
Tom Sheehan doesn't let us forget. A discreet, laid-back character, Harry
Krisman is the true hero of the story, because he sticks to what he's
promised himself and society by becoming a policeman. There may be inhuman
suffering and sub-human culprits, there may be a gut-wave of rage and a gun
near at hand, but the path of justice, the famous "straight and narrow",
lies elsewhere. The talent of Tom Sheehan, among other manifestations, is
that this reading, my reading, is just one possible interpretation among
many others. The moral options are clearly laid out in front of you,
and it is up to you to make up your mind - a demanding task.
In addition to all this, consider also Tom Sheehan's elegant, balanced,
compassionate writing, his attention to detail and atmosphere which he
renders naturally, unobtrusively, with an ease that would make most writers
jealous. With his two feet planted in Saugus, Ma., and his heart opened
wide onto the world, Sheehan doesn't simply thrill us, he talks to our
souls with a warm, familiar voice. Thank God, there are many more Krisman
novels to read and prolong the spell.

G. Destot
former editor and contributor to 3 AM Magazine.