Revenge by Mark Young: Travis Mays walks away from his life in the police force after a sting operation ends in tragedy. He moves from central California to middle-of-nowhere Idaho, where he teaches criminology at a Washington university to fund his life as a recluse in a small cabin. One day he signs up for kayaking lessons; his guide is the lovely Jessie White Eagle, a Native American of the Nez Perce tribe whose brother has recently gone missing. What follows is a rather twisty tale of murder and deception. I understood the killer’s beef with Mays, but a whole lot of plot hangs on the chance meeting between Mays and White Eagle. If Mays hadn’t signed up for those lessons that day, quite a bit of this story would not have happened. Anyway, I enjoyed this one more than I’d expected, zipping through chapters with ease. It helps that the author has experience both as a cop and a journalist. Sure, I didn’t know what all the lingo and acronyms meant, but I gleaned enough from context that it didn’t distract me, and indeed added to the realism. My only real complaint was how much difficulty I had keeping the various characters straight. There are a lot of players here and all of them are interconnected, often in convoluted ways. I also wish there was more information on the Nez Perce, though instilling an interest in further learning is never a bad thing in the book. All in all, if you’re looking for a decent thriller, this is worth picking up.

Also posted on BookCrossing.