Review: Hellrider

Hellrider by J.G. Faherty
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really anticipated this novel when I saw it available at NetGalley. In some ways I ended up liking it a lot, in other ways not so much. I found myself empathising with the eponymous character, Eddie Ryder, from the beginning, until nearly the end. He's had a rough life, bad genetics, but he does love his ailing mother (emphysema) and his younger (very intelligent) brother. He tries his best to support them and himself in a tiny little "backwater" community next to the Everglades. He's made mistakes, he's paid for them; but seems like either due to genetics or his own attitudes or his reputation, he's still paying...And then comes that fatal moment...

Except: for Eddie, it's fatal but it's also a second chance. So he decides to repay everybody that's done him wrong. That was fine for a while; I enjoy vigilante justice as much as the next person, but before too long, Eddie's spirit or ghost or whatever his afterdeath energy is called loses its hold on sanity; and from there it was just over the top. Too many people get hurt who really were "innocent bystanders." Like a war zone.

Finally Mr. Flaherty ties off the tapestry with a really neatly done ending and epilogue. Scary, but neat. And apropos to the story.

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