Quiver-Peter Leonard

Quiver
Peter Leonard
St. Martin's, May 2008, $24.95
ISBN: 9780312379025

In Detroit former racing car champion Owen McCall and his teenage son Luke go hunting together. Luke shoots an arrow at a deer that somehow goes through the animal and his father, killing Owen.

The sixteen years old boy is filled with guilt and depression, his mom Kate struggles with her own despondency. However, the Widow is not allowed any time to grief or be there for her devastated offspring. Her former Peace Corps lover Jack Curran arrives allegedly to console the widow who he reminds that he once saved her life. However, Jack has a hidden agenda and fails to inform Kate that he did time and that his current friends have criminal plans for the surviving McCalls.

Although an entertaining crime caper, QUIVER is too much a good guys vs. the bad guys thriller rather than a deep look at a grieving son filled with self loathing guilt over killing his dad even though Luke knows logically it was an accident. Instead the tale focuses on what Jack and associates do to Kate and Luke with a full circle high noon confrontation at Owen’s hunting lodge while the audience expects insight into Luke’s mental state. Still Peter Leonard provides an exciting suspense thriller.

Harriet Klausner