Petey's Fiction Review

 

Samaritan

by Richard Price

Ray Mitchell abandoned his career as a high school teacher to take up writing for television. Now, he's abandoned his lucrative writing career to return to the New Jersey housing projects in the city of his youth. Divorced, and alienated from his daughter, Ray wants to reconnect with the 13-year old before her childhood slips away.

Because he also wants to do something for the people still living in the projects, Ray volunteers to teach a writing class to a small group of promising, but unmotivated and underachieving, students. At the same time, he begins an ill-conceived affair with a married woman whose husband is about to be released from prison.

The affair ends, but soon after the man's release, Ray is found lying on the floor of his apartment, suffering from massive head trauma due to a savage beating. For days, as Ray teeters on the brink of consciousness, his survival seems uncertain.

Detective Nerese Ammons, six months away from retirement, has never forgotten an act of kindness shown by Ray, a good samaritan and former childhood acquaintance. Driven to solve the case as much to repay a debt of gratitude as to end her career on a high note, Nerese races against time to bring Ray's assailant to justice.

Complicating the investigation is the fact that Ray knows his attacker's identity, but refuses to reveal it, or to press charges. Unable to convince Ray to give up the perp, Nerese sorts through a mountain of misleading evidence and dead-end clues, and interviews numerous suspects as she tries to unravel the mystery.

Even as Nerese works the case to its inevitable conclusion, Ray works to restore balance to a life that's taken on new meaning and purpose.

Samaritan is a masterful work, a literary mystery, written by the author of Freedomland, Clockers, and other works of fiction.

Review by Phil Hanson

 

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Copyright © 2005 by Phil Hanson
All rights reserved.

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