Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Cry Father-Benjamin Whitmer

Cry Father
Benjamin Whitmer
Gallery, Sep 16 2014, $25.00
ISBN 9781476734354

Patterson Wells travels the country working as a tree trimmer at disasters.  Since a doctor erred on his son’s diagnosis leading to the child’s death; Wells has become a disaster.  His marriage died with his child, but his ex who lives in Taos wants to sue the medical killer for malpractice; while Wells no longer cares about anything except writing letters to his late son Justin.  His only companion is his dog Sancho.

He visits his friend Chase to go fishing, but his buddy is meth dazed and hogtied a female who upon release by Wells bashes the head of her drugged out host with a bat.  At home in Colorado, Wells meets drug runner and user Junior, son of his neighbor Henry.  Wells and Junior begin an odyssey of violence fueled by coke and meth.

This gory thriller opens up with the swings of a bat and closes with more violence after much blood and guts flow in between.  Wells is a mesmerizing sociopathic antihero as he no longer cares about life since his child died; yet keeps alive their father-son relationship through the letters he writes to Justin.  Not for anyone with a squeamish stomach, Cry Father is an extremely dark and very brutal tale.


Harriet Klausner

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