A Fistful of Rain

Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0553581821, Mass Market Paperback)

Even before she can get through the front door of her house, Mim is kidnapped at gunpoint, forced into a truck and told to strip, then driven around for a while before being dumped back where she started, bewildered but unmolested. Shortly thereafter, nude photos of her turn up on the Internet, and her drug-dealing brother, Mikel--whom Mim fears helped make this pornography possible--is shot to death. The musician is quick to blame Mikel's murder on their father, Tommy, who's just won release after spending 15 years in prison for killing Mim's mom; yet she concedes that such premeditated violence is probably beyond him. "He wasn't a planner," Mim says of the hated Tommy. "He was like me; life happened to us, we didn't do things to life." But then, who else would want to hasten the destruction this woman has already been bringing on herself? To find out, the petite and pissed-off Mim will have to elude police, confront a blackmailer in Portland's "shanghai tunnels," and stay sober long enough to stay alive.

Rucka brings the same cinematic storytelling, sharp plot twists, and quirky characterizations to A Fistful of Rain that have won his Atticus Kodiak novels praise. His portrayal of Mim Bracca is thoughtfully nuanced, her credibility as a heroine drawn from her weaknesses, rather than cobbled together from unexpected strengths. Too bad he wasn't as conscientious with other players here, such as Tailhook diva Vanessa Parada, who's given barely enough dimension to anchor her competitive claws; or Detective Tracy Hoffman, whose lesbian attraction to Mim is more the product of male fantasy than a significant addition to this yarn. Although readers can solve many of Rucka's puzzles before Mim does, the fraught relationship between this guitarist and her dad, as well as a turnaround ending, prevent A Fistful of Rain from ever seeming dry. --J. Kingston Pierce