The Terror of Living: A Novel

It was the quote from Daniel Woodrell (author of Winter's Bone, of whom I’m a huge fan), on the cover that made me instantly want to read this book, a debut novel set in the backwoods border country near Seattle. To all outward appearances it’s a crime thriller, set in the murky and violent world of drug smuggling, but it also felt very like a modern western, grounded in Cormac McCarthy territory. At it’s heart are two men, the hunter and the hunted, and when a third enters the story, their roles will be turned around again and again.

Hunt is an ex-convict. He lives quietly on a small ranch with his wife Nora. They struggle to make ends meet, so Hunt takes on the occasional drug-smuggling job. When he’s asked to take a new young show more lad on the latest trip to help bring the drugs down from the mountain drop on horseback, the moment he sees the boy he feels something will go wrong.

Drake is a deputy Sheriff. He patrols the backwoods up from Seattle to the border with Canada. He’s recently married to Sheri, and still trying to shake off the shadow of his father who used to be a Sheriff, but is now in prison for drug smuggling.

Drake spots a city car parked on a logging road in the middle of nowhere, and decides to investigate. This will spark off a whole chain of events that will lead to a trail of murder, mayhem and an awful lot of spilled blood as a hitman is hired to mete out punishments and allow the nasty men at the top of the tree recover the drugs when it all goes up the creek. It’s not just Hunt and his associates that are at risk from the hitman, it soon becomes clear that Drake will be targeted too, and he teams up with Agent Driscoll from the DEA to see the case through.

This novel was a compulsive read and so bloody! Once Grady the psychotic hitman arrives on the scene, things start to happen in true serial killer fashion. But the story is not his, it’s of Hunt and Drake – two men who are very alike in character. Both have done their time, Hunt in actual jail, Drake living down the shame of his father. They’re so similar that sometimes I was confused which one I was reading about – the only criticism I really have about this rather good book. I did rather like the dry DEA Officer, Driscoll – for some reason I kept picturing him as Dan Ackroyd; Driscoll had a feel of Elwood Blues about him!

If you can cope with all the blood, this is a fine debut thriller with a superb setting and a classic cat and mouse chase at its heart. (Review copy from Amazon Vine) show less

A drug deal gone bad has been written from here to there to everywhere. And that's what this book ostensibly is about? a huge crate of heroine is dropped from a helicopter somewhere in the mountains of Washington state. Instead of making a smooth delivery, the town sheriff hears the commotion (you'll find out why he's nearby later in the novel) foils the plan and takes one victim into custody. What happens thereafter is that the gates of hell are swung open: the drug dealers have turned against their own man, Phil Hunt.

But while a drug deal gone bad is the moving force behind it all, don't let that dissuade you literary-loving people from buying this one. It reads like a dream. This gorgeously written suspense thriller is about show more desperation, about the pursuit of a little peace, about trying to carve out a place in the world for yourself and how sometimes you get lost on the way. It's about getting in over your head, and then having to run like hell to keep it from catching up with you.

Let me tell you a little about the characters:

"He'd gone through a door that only swung one way."

Phil Hunt: A former convict who's been living in a beautiful secluded piece of land with his wife, Nora. They operate a small farm and raise several horses. Basically living hand to mouth, Hunt does a little on the side for extra income. He picks up the drugs and then shuttles them to their assigned destination. He gets enough out of it to keep paying his mortgage, but never enough to quit. And because he's served time for a 2nd degree murder years before, finding decent work isn't an option. In his mind, he's doing what he has to, to survive.

"This land, these mountains and valleys, carved by glaciers and erosioin were all Drake had left of a former life."

Bobby Drake: The town sheriff. But it's more interesting than just that: Drake's father, the previous sheriff, was busted years afo for smuggling drugs at Silver Lake, and just like that, Drake's entire life changed. He becomes a hardline man of the law, intent on integrity and honor. He makes it his personal mission to not be associated with the legacy of his corrupted father, and to sniff out the smuggling at its source.

"Keep your knives sharp and they'll cut through just about anything."

Grady Fisher: Bloodlust has never been so chillingly illustrated. A hired hitman for the dealers, Fisher is more like the butcher (and how appropriate, since he's also a cook). Instead of killing efficiently with a gun, he prefers to slice and puncture and eviscerate with his cherished collection of knives. The drive to kill is ever present, "humming away like a little bird trying to take wing." Grady is hired to take out Hunt before Bobby Drake can get to him first (and find more about the vast illegal operation). But his thirst for the kill isn't so easily focused; he will indulge himself wherever and whenever he can.

This is the male triumvirate of characters that provides the bellowing locomotive that is the plot. The secondary characters include a namelss lawyer that coordinates the logistics for the deals; Eddie, friend and fellow drug-runner of Hunt; and the DEA agent, Driscoll, who's in charge of the federal investigation.

Which brings us to the female characters, Nora and Sherie:

Why would anyone want to marry a convicted murderer and live a life of unease and the potential for disaster at any given moment? That's what makes the character of Nora so fascinating: she s no simpering subordinate. She owns up to choosing this fate and yet maintains some measure of morality and decency. In another writer's less skilled hands, this may not have worked.

Sheri, Bobby's wife, is also an engaging character. Every step of the way, in every decision he makes, she is there challenging him, his perceptions, his judgments, his ideals. She questions him relentlessly for his motivations and through her, we see Drake's development and transformation.

All in all, a great read. Typically, I lose the thread and have to convince and cajole myself to get back to the story. But not this time!

And now time for the excerpts:

"The smell of him, in his new old clothes, was something of dust, something of mildew and dark, locked away places, so deep it seemed to come from his skin itself."

"For a moment he'd dreamed of being back in prison, that locked-away, lonely feeling worse in his dreams than it had been twenty years ago. Hollow sounds of voices echoing down cement hallways. The poor, eaten-away souls residing there, the weak and starved, blubbering non-sense, rib cages like two claws come together across their sternum. He woke, stunned, his tongue pulled back in his throat, floating back there like something meant to suffocate him." show less

The Terror of Living is a literary-noir-suspense-crime-western-drug smuggling story set in Washington State and Canada. Phil Hunt, a horseman and convicted felon by trade, loses a load of cocaine that has been air-dropped into the mountains, where he’s supposed to pack it out by horse. He’s pursued by the deputy that seized the coke, by the DEA, by the people who were supposed to get the shipment, and by the hired killer they send after him.

No one is truly innocent - they’re not all bad either. But some characters are very, very bad. Phil can’t catch a break, and as in any good thriller, his troubles continue to mount. The story is well-paced and the action rises toward the conclusion

The Terror of Living is a fine first novel, and without a doubt, a page-turning thriller that will keep you reading late into the night. The comparisons to Cormac McCarthy, and especially No Country For Old Men are appropriate. In fact, sometimes the prose is imitative in an obvious way, but Waite is a first time novelist, and The Terror of Living does not contain the depth beneath the prose that a McCarthy novel does. I think the novel works better as a thriller than literature, but that's not a bad thing. I aslo enjoyed the Pacific Northwest setting (being a resident myself), and the shifting morality of the characters.

My rating is really wavering between three and four, but overall I certainly enjoyed The Terror of Living, and look show more forward to more of Waite's work in the future. show less

Non stop action all the way through! But dang, if this isn't a super close retelling of No Country for Old Men! And the author even thanks Cormac in the acknowledgments! He should do more than thank, he should send him some of his royalties!

The Terror Of Living is a fast-paced crime suspense thriller that has mild to moderate expletives with many graphic bloody scene descriptions. First time author, Urban Waite, delivers an on-your-seat thriller with strong characters and a believable plot. Phil Hunt is a down-on-his luck horse rancher who is looking for one big break to put his life back in order. Bobby Drake is the deputy sheriff who struggles with his past while embracing his future. Grady, "The Chef", is the socio-psychopath bent on destroying them both. Driscoll, the DEA agent, who just wants the answers and will stop at nothing to get them. Sheri, Bobby's wife, who accepts, understands and guides Bobby thru his struggles with his past and Nora, Phil's wife, who loves show more him no matter what the cost.

Using the Canadian/Washington wilderness pass as the main setting...we are brought into the world of drug smuggling and the high stakes that in involved. We're taken into a world where human life means nothing, only the goods being delivered are important. When a drug deal goes bad...the three men struggle against time to stay one step ahead of each other. Will Bobby's ghosts finally be laid to rest?? What drives The Chef to his madness?? And will Phil be able to save his life, his farm and Nora from the hands of a madman??

SYNOPSIS:
An ex-con drug smuggles in an attempt to earn some money to keep his struggling horse farm afloat. All is going as planned until a deputy sheriff stumbles upon the drug pickup that sets the catalyst of the book in motion. The "suppliers" want their product back and the lives of those who messed up and only the quick-witted will survive. show less

This book was not really to my liking--too violent.
A small-time drug runner and ex-con, Hunt, gets interrupted in a run in the mountains by a small-time sheriff, Drake,who had a father who had been caught doing exactly the same kind of drug running.
Because the drugs don't go where they are supposed to go, a nasty piece of work who likes to play with people and knives is sent out to look for the drugs and incidentally, gut and play with a few poor souls. A triad, which is at the back of all this, also goes on the trail and nastiness ensues.
The sheriff has quite a few father issues. Despite being a drug runner, Hunt is a more or less decent person who tries to get out of the mess he's gotten himself and his wife into.