Pirata

May 14, 2018
Former California car salesman Nick Lutz, the narrator of this thoughtful thriller from Hasburgh (Aspen Pulp), is called Pirata by the locals of Sabinita, Mexico, for the patch he wears over the eye he lost in a carjacking—the first in a series of misfortunes that led to the loss of his job, a lasting break from his wife and son, and his move to Mexico. In Sabinita, Nick uses his one passion, surfing, to cover up his emotional pain. When Meagan, the girlfriend of his surfing buddy, Winsor, puts a claw hammer in Winsor’s skull to protect her son Jade from being molested by Winsor, Lutz reluctantly agrees to get rid of the body. As he becomes more involved with Meagan, Jade, and her other son, Obsidian, their menage looks to be turning into a family. But Meagan leaves with Jade’s father, and the federales and the FBI enter to further complicate his life after an unidentified body washes ashore. Hasburgh tells a moving human story, but the surfeit of surfing lingo may bewilder readers unfamiliar with the sport. Agent: David Gernert, Gernert Agency.

May 15, 2018
A former car salesman retreats to Mexico after a near-death experience and finds that the violence he tried to escape has followed him.Nick Lutz, the salesman, gets a bullet in the head from a customer trying to hijack a car. Later, a driving accident caused by his injuries leaves his young son seriously injured. In short order Nick finds he's lost his family, his marriage, his job. Heading to Mexico, he leads the life of a middle-aged surf bum along with his buddy Winsor. But Winsor turns out to be no one to be friends with and winds up dead when his girlfriend tries to prevent him from abusing one of her sons. Nick becomes party to hiding the body and, to complicate matters even further, gets involved with Winsor's girl and her two boys. The narrative here isn't quite noir and isn't quite straight drama, and it certainly lacks a sense of humor. The sense of midlife resignation is present from the start rather than earned by the proceedings. But the story is a good one, with adult emotions and the appeal of a flawed man trying to use his experience and what little he can claim in the way of wisdom to protect vulnerable people from the hurt that's been inflicted on them. And if the final narrative twists risk convenience, they are nonetheless emotionally satisfying.This novel lacks some essential bit of pleasure but it's still an affecting read.

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May 1, 2018
Nick Lutz is a noir hero in excelsis. He's down on his luck, hiding out in a hangdog community in Mexico. Years ago he was shot in the eye, and the bullet came out the back of his head. He's given to seizures. During a bad one, he drove into a tree and saw his son being carried away with a broken neck. Now he's complicit in a killing. An FBI agent appears. Then, suddenly, the darkness recedes, and we're transported into a surfing novel, awash in hollow overheads and pitchy barrels; just as suddenly, the surf's down, and Nick is off trying to be a father to two children of a single mother. Here's the curious thing: these interludes are so compellingly written that even the most noir-hungry readers will find themselves almost forgetting to miss the dark stuff. Surfing and crime have come together before, most notably in Kem Nunn's cult classic Tapping the Source (1984) and in Don Winslow's The Dawn Patrol (2008) and The Gentleman's Hour (2011), but Hasburgh ups the ante by adding domestic drama into the mix. A strange brew, but it works.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

February 15, 2018

Nick Lutz lost more than an eye when he was shot in the head during a carjacking. Now bereft of job, family, and purpose, he's mostly surfing down Mexico way. Then his bad-news buddy Winsor gets clobbered to death by his girlfriend Meagan, and Nick helps her hide the body. From 21-Jump Street creator/writer Hasburgh, a Shamus Award finalist; with a 30,000-copy first printing.

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