Opening Sentence: "...The rumble of the machines stopped everything cold..."

Kristin Van Dijk, 17,travels around with her pool hustler father. On the night that the book opens she is forced by four bikers to watch the murder of her father before she herself is raped, badly beaten and left for dead. The owner of the Pool Hall were the assault took place is Henry Chin, a Chinese immigrant whose grown son was one of those murdered. He drags her out of the burning building and saves her. He hides her and helps her recover. Henry finds out that the local police are not going to investigate the pool hall crime, so he hires a sleezy ex-cop private investigator to search for the gang of killers. Henry hires a martial arts expert and a weapons expert to train Kristin in how to protect herself. A friend of her father's brings up her pool talents to that of expert. She is now one tough cookie as she starts to hustles pool in west Texas and earn the nickname Baby Shark. Now comes the revenge part.

I started out really getting into the story, was a fast paced start with a horrific opening followed by Baby rebuilding her life and becoming strong in every sense of the word. I really admired her fortitude. Then came the first killing - or should I say massacre!!! In the end it was just too much gratuitous bloodshed, revenge and eye for an eyemanship. Very quickly I was turned off by the whole concept of revenge that the plot is based on. The whole ethical thing worried me - if someone hurts you - then they can be justified in hurting them back? This is not what I want my grandson to learn. Sometimes bad thing happen to really good people - stay good and move on - don't bring yourself down to their level.

I won't be reading the second one in the series - which I have - I will pass them on to a friend who likes the more hard core stuff. I am much more happier at the cozier and of the mystery spectrum where my ethics are less likely to be challenged. ( )

I was engrossed in this book from page one. Other reviewers have given you the story and the plot. All I can add is - read this book! ( )

Baby Shark is a revenge and recovery story set in Texas in the 1950s and a terrific story in the hard-boiled school. I first read about it on The Gumshoe Review. When it didn't show up in local book stores I ordered it. I also ordered the sequel, Baby Shark's Beaumont Blues and glad I did since it saved me time getting it.

At seventeen, Kristin Van Dijk sees her father murdered in a Texas bar by a motor cycle gang and is then brutally beaten and raped. The owner of the bar, a Chinese-American named Henry Chin is shot and left for dead. He pulls Kristin from a fire set to cover-up the crime. Henry's son was also killed by the bikers. When Henry finds that someone with influence has managed to get the investigation closed, he and Kristen begin planning their private war against the bikers. Along the way they find help from: an ex-cop private eye named Otis who keeps his .45 handy and isn't adverse to taking preemptive action; a psychotic Korean War veteran and small arms expert; and a former military close-quarters combat instructor. You also get really nasty bad guys, a corrupt cop, and a waitress with a heart of gold.

The story and characters are well developed and the pacing pulls you along. I appreciated the care Fate took to set up the action. The narration is written in the first person from Kristin's point of view and has terrific hard-boiled dialog like

Bear took that stunned look of recognition directly to hell – along with two slugs in his heart.

If you like hard-boiled stories, you can't help but go "Yea!" when you read a line like that. I recommend this book to anyone who doesn't mind a lethal teenager with a grudge and much (justifable) extra-legal bloodshed. ( )

Kristen Van Dijk's life is a bit unusual for a 17 year old girl in the 1950, going from pool hall to pool hall with her pool hustling father. But it all ends in a rural bar when a group of bikers show up to get revenge over a lost pool game. When it is all over Kristen's father and the bar owner are brutally murdered, the owner's father, Henry, is left for dead and Kristen herself is barely alive after a repetitive beatings and rape. But the police are in no hurry to solve the murder of a lowly pool hustler or the rape of a girl who, by even being in a pool hall, must have asked for it. The murder of the Chinese bar owner and the fact that they burned down the bar does not seem to matter much to the local lawmen either. The lost report on the whole happening is even more suspicious.

Henry brings Kristen home with him to recover in peace, hidden away on his back country ranch. There they decide that the killers of their family members must be brought to justice- if the law will not do it they will take care ofn it themselves. Kristen works to get her strength up both physically and mentally. She runs, learns to shoot a gun and, to become Baby Shark, play pool like a pro. With the help of PI Otis Millet they begin to track down the bikers who did the killings. But someone is definitely trying to protect the bikers, especially the one they call Blue Eyes, and it is up to Kristen, Otis and Henry to figure out who is interfering with their plans. And Kristen must discover if she can carry through on their plan for revenge.

This book should cause quite a discussion with its unusual heroine. Robert Fate has used first person voice to pull the reader into Kristen's world. This works to not only raise his audience's sympathy for a cold blooded killer, but causes them to stand up and cheer for her. The style of writing is cool and sparse to match the tone of the story. The characters are well defined without a lot of background to clutter up the pace. This makes it a full out run to the end, no stopping reading in between chapters.

This is an exciting debut for this author and we are glad he is not done here. We are now looking forward to spring of 2007 for Baby Sharks' Beaumont Blues and later for Baby Shark's Sooner Weekends. It will be interesting to see how Robert Fate continues Kristen's story after she has exacted her revenge. Maybe a chance for romance? But it is hard to imagine Baby Shark settling for a life in the mainstream.

(Wonder how long it will take movie producers to get ahold of these rights? Perfect combination of chick flick with blood gushing action- something for everyone. ) ( )

What a pleasant surprise! I had my doubts about this book despite - or perhaps because of - the abundant charm of its author. I'm suspicious of people who arrive at writing as the latest in a long series of careers (though I suppose that describes me too to some extent) but in this case RF arrived at fiction-writing ready and armed to get down to it.

This is the best book yet for pure vicarious kick-ass vengeance fantasy - and for that alone I love it.

Every darn character in Baby Shark is a loveable keeper, and that's saying something when their hearts are as dark and vengeance-bent as these. I'm glad RF didn't shy away from the horror of the precipitating crime. It needed to be every bit as horrible as it was. I'm equally glad he didn't pansy up the resolution, either. The bad guys were dispatched violently to hell, and Kristen & crew didn't waste a lot of time cryin over it. Second thoughts and ruined souls play hell with the reader's vicarious thrill, IMHO - when I feel like Mad Max, I want to stomp around with conviction, not hesitate with moral compunctions. Kristen is glad to see her tormentor suffer, and that read right - it would be false for her to equivocate and put him out of his misery.

How about this line;
"I had relinquished an irreplaceable piece of my humanity when I chose revenge."

This is the quality that will set Kristen up well for further ventures.

How I adored Henry! And Jim (the dog) - and Otis. And all the secondary characters. Even MacKenzie, dullard admirer, was well-turned-out. Even the cars have personalities.

I have no idea how RF manages to write 19 YO female so convincingly, but I'm glad he does. ( )