Jordan Harper

The debut novel She Rides Shotgun by Jordan Harper was a dark and grim tale about an ex-con’s efforts to protect his young daughter after the leader of the gang Aryan Steel puts out a hit on him, his ex-wife and his daughter. While they succeed at murdering her mother, young Polly is grabbed by her father, Nate, and with only her teddy bear to comfort her, they set off on a bumpy ride through the seamy side of Southern California.

In a desperate effort to get the vendetta lifted, Nate trains Polly to fight and understand the evil they are facing. Together they start to hit back at Aryan Steel in the hope that they can do enough damage that the hit will be cancelled. When that doesn’t work, Nate approaches a rival gang and put’s his own life on the line in a bid to save Polly.

The book is labelled as “Grit Lit” and doesn’t shy away from describing violence, ugliness and the dark side of life. But for all of that, it also clearly shows the character’s loyalty and love for each other and was a story that really touched my emotions. Nate and Polly go from being total strangers to creating a special Father-Daughter bond as they experience this dark adventure together. She Rides Shotgun was a well written, intelligent story that I highly recommend to anyone who loves the work of Donald Ray Pollock and Daniel Woodrell.… (more)

I enjoyed the first half of this more than the second. Mae's work for a crisis management/PR firm was really interesting, although increasingly morally dubious. Then there was Chris, an ex-police officer, whose unit had become more or less a gang in itself, and now working as a sort of enforcer for a security firm. Somehow the author made me warm to them. They gradually realize how far their employers are connected and controlling of the movie industry in LA. The second half was more of a thriller and interested me less.… (more)

A book about very powerful people. About a system that is probably not far from the truth. And yet, making the story into a thriller takes away what power the book itself may have had. The victims are just a reason for unfolding a story, not the focus of the narrative. It's about whether bad people or very bad people abuse and / or profit from them. There are no heroes in this book, the system is self-contained and self-preserving.
But: the presentation of Los Angeles and everything it has come to stand for is tremendously powerful. No need to judge or critizise, the mere details of life in L.A. are enough to unfold a city so full of misconceptions, unreasonably high expectations, greed, hopes, depravity, power and shattered dreams, that it adds to the uncanny realism of this story that would be preposterous if it happened anywhere else. This is the only place a story like this can be true. L.A. is not a setting in this book, it's a protagonist.… (more)