This Paul Watkins novel simmered until page 256 and then boiled over inside me without warning.
How did he do that? It makes me want to wolf down the remaining 54 pages in one sitting, but I’m not sure I’m ready to release these characters just yet.
This is the third novel he wrote—at age 26. Third person rather than first, it has a slightly more unsettling tone than “The Forger,” but no less cinematic (even more so I’d say), and yet it’s clear the same creative force is present in this earlier work. Although perhaps a bit more eager to entertain at this stage, he applies a youthful energy to his story in a remarkably economical manner.