Where It Hurts by Reed Farrel Coleman

Reed Farrel Coleman wrote Where It Hurts for me. No, you won’t see my name on the Dedication Page, not in the Acknowledgement section either. Nope, nary a footnote exists in Where It Hurts to identify how Coleman wrote this book for me. In fact, I would venture a guess that my name didn’t fire a single synapse in his fertile brain as Coleman was writing Where It Hurts.

Where It Hurts is, to a great extent, about dealing with grief and when Coleman was writing this, I hadn’t experienced the loss that would have such a profound effect on me. But still, it was written for me, and also for many others who have experienced the death of someone so close to them that that passing felt as if a piece of their heart was wrenched from their being. Cue Janis Joplin.

One of Coleman’s literary talents is the ability to put you in the mind, and heart, of his characters with such clarity and intensity that you become one of those characters. In Where It Hurts, that character is John Augustus Murphy, or Gus, as he likes to be called.

Gus is the guy that we want a Coleman protagonist to be. He has the toughness and street smarts learned as a former Suffolk County policeman. He understands human nature. He knows that people can sometimes be brilliant, and that sometimes they can be just plain stupid. And the Family Feud number one answer that Gus has in spades, is heart.

Gus’s heart is broken. His son, John, broke it when he died as a young man with his whole life ahead of him, and for two years Gus has suffered with that while the rest of his family disintegrated. Gus’s wife, Annie, drove a final stake into it by an infidelity with one of Gus’s former coworkers, and Gus’s daughter, Kristen, descended into a life battling drugs and alcohol.

Gus, himself, lives and works at The Paragon Hotel, a second rate hotel near MacArthur Airport on Long Island. It is a paragon of only of what shape Gus’s life is in, a perfect mess.

Told in first person point of view, Coleman gives the reader a ring-side seat for Gus’s dealing with his grief, his ruminations on death and what comes next, and how he’s trying to move past it to a new life, one that will probably never be quite as good as the one he had.

Into this new life walks Tommy Delcamino, a small-time hood that Gus had dealings with when he was a police officer. Tommy is dealing with grief too. His son, TJ, was tortured and murdered months earlier. Now he wants Gus to help him find out why. The police seem disinterested, even when Tommy gave them plenty of leads to go on.

Gus is reluctant.  But when a Suffolk County Police contact warns him to stay away from the case and then Tommy Delcamino is murdered, Gus’s curiosity is piqued, and his heart works on his mind. Gus figures even small time hoods deserve justice, even if they’re dead.

Gus finds himself in a battle with drug runners, organized crime figures, and maybe even corrupt cops. But he doesn’t fight his battle alone. Slava, a coworker at The Paragon Hotel, with a murky Russian past, Father Bill, a former priest of questionable faith, who helps Gus manage his moral compass, and Dr. Rosen, a psychiatrist, who attempts to help Gus solve the answer to the magic show that is self-deceit, all help Gus to navigate through dangerous waters.

What readers of Coleman’s novels have come to expect are rich characterizations, solid plotting, realistic dialog, an occasional thrill, and an emotional core that examines the human side of every story. Where It Hurts succeeds in every facet.

So when Coleman writes his next book for me, or not, I trust Gus will be in good hands. He is a fascinating new character that I hope is around for many adventures to come. If you haven’t read Reed Farrel Coleman before, reading Where It Hurts and meeting Gus Murphy is a good place to start.

Where It Hurts will be available January 12, 2016.