Weekly Reader: Eye For Eye (Talion Series Book One) by J.K. Franko; Gripping and Twist Turning Psychological Revenge Thriller

 

Weekly Reader: Eye For Eye (Talion Series Book One) by J.K. Franko; Gripping and Twist Turning Psychological Revenge Thriller

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Eye for Eye by J.K. Franko is the start of a four part series about revenge and the lives that are lost in the pursuit, by the course of the revenge and the crime that preceded it. The series may be a slow burning action into the complexities of vengeance and the mindset of the people before and after the act as well as the moral, ethical, and legal quandaries. However, Eye for Eye is not that. Instead, it is a gripping fast paced novel with several intriguing and fascinating plot twists and psychological mind games that characters inflict on one another. That is great for a stand alone novel, but one has to wonder how this pace would be kept up for an entire series (three interconnected books and a prequel). It could do well, but it could also get repetitive especially when the central crime and revenge act are in the first book. 

However, if you ignore Franko's long term plans, Eye For Eye is a very good and suspenseful read because you don't know what the characters are going to do and who to empathize with, if anyone.

The plot focuses on affluent Floridians, Susie Font and Roy Cruise whose daughter, Camilla, was killed by Liam Bareto, who was texting and driving when the accident occurred.

On vacation, the married couple watch Game of Thrones and observe Arya Stark taking revenge on Walder Frey for the deaths of her mother, Catelyn and older brother, Robb. This passage becomes a bit meta as they talk about a fictional character seeking revenge and how people approve of things in fiction that they wouldn't in real life, even though, you know, they are fictional characters seeking revenge and eventually do things that people would never approve of in real life.

Anyway, their conversation is coincidentally, later proven to be not so coincidentally, overheard by Deb and Tom Wise, another couple that also suffered a personal loss. Their daughter, Kristy was sexually assaulted by Joe Harlan Jr., a Senator's son whose contacts and family wealth allowed him to be acquitted. The Wises have a proposition for Susie and Roy: since they are all in the same boat with a child that had been killed or assaulted by someone who got away with it, if the Wises take care of Bareto, could Susie and Roy kill Harlan for them? 

The offer is intriguing and with Susie and Roy's marriage on the decline, the two have very little to rely on. Both Susie and Roy have been severely affected by Camilla's death and Franko reveals the strain that the loss has in their marriage rather well. Susie has become an advocate against texting and driving, but her activism cannot hide the enraged emotions that she feels. Roy keeps most of his emotions internal and spends time making his business, Cruise Control, a success. The two are falling apart emotionally. When people are like that, they are willing to do anything to bring themselves back together, including murder. They explode their anger onto someone else, so they don't implode on themselves.

The way that Roy and Susie plan Harlan's death is so cold and analytical, almost worthy of a villain in a James Patterson or Dennis Lehane novel. They have the advantage since Harlan lives in Texas and they have no prior connection to him. They plan the items that they need and the steps as methodically and nonchalantly as though they were making a shopping list.

Roy and Susie are written as a couple who suffer a deep loss and most of our sympathies lie with them. In fact Harlan is so reprehensible and amoral that we can't help, but root against him. However, while Roy and Susie make their plans to murder him and entrap him, our allegiances don't really shift but we question Roy and Susie's motives and actions. They become so cold, that they are almost inhuman. It becomes less of good guys vs. bad guys and more bad guys vs. slightly worse guys.

What also shifts allegiances are many of the revelations that we learn about Roy, Susie, and The Wises. We learn that the two seemingly random couples go back farther than was initially believed and that things were planned long before the events in which we read. A few of these twists are expertly written and fold neatly into the novel. They make the four characters more multilayered and untrustworthy than before. Some are somewhat implausible in the odds that these characters who knew each other once would be involved in each other's lives once again, but it ties into the book's overall themes of revenge for crimes long unresolved and secrets that are no longer buried.

One anticlimactic bit so far is the revelation of the first person narrator. There are hints that the character is important to the storyline, but their identity is later revealed to be a mere observer introduced late into the story who bears no major part to the action preceding. Now judging by the preview of the next book, Tooth for Tooth, this character may become more involved as the series goes on. For now, they are just the teller of other people's stories and none of their own.

Despite its flaws in narration and plot convenience, Eye for Eye is a brilliant psychological novel of crime and revenge. It's a ride through a roller coaster/haunted house designed to surprise and sometimes scare you, but then gives satisfaction that it's over.