“Fresh Meat” by Laura Benedict for Criminal Element

The troubled hero of Steven John’s new dystopian thriller, Three A.M., is starved for sunshine. Literally starved. Fifteen years earlier, the sunshine disappeared just as Tom Vale’s parents and thousands of others died, horrifically, from a mysterious virus. Replacing the sunshine is a thick, damp fog that suffuses the air, making even a stroll down the street a near impossibility. Tom Vale, his life, and city are like grey ghosts, trapped in time.

Vale is a detective who hires himself out to find the missing pieces of others’ lives. One night, a stunner named Rebecca tracks him down at his local bar and tries to convince him to find the real killer of a man named Samuel Ayers. She wants the man who has been charged with the crime, Fallon Samson, to be vindicated. The situation, from Rebecca’s tight red dress and long black cigarettes, to the fedora-topped man who seems to be following Vale, feels like pure 20th century noir. Vale is instantly smitten with Rebecca, but he quickly smells a rat, and decides he’s being set up.

It’s astonishing that Vale can smell anything at all. He keeps himself drunk and high on illegal pills to dull the pain and boredom of his daily life. It’s almost painful to read of his constant hangovers, his frequent stumbles, and his fevered groping of buildings and street lamps (orbs) as he inches his way through his murky life. John gives the reader occasional flashbacks to the time “before.” A time that Vale, and everyone around him, is slowly forgetting.

Read more atL http://www.criminalelement.com/blogs/2012/03/three-am-steven-john-thriller-noir-...

Interesting book. Started off well, finished poorly. First 2/3 of the book were fun, good concept and protaganist was sympathetic. Last third though really sank fast. Antagonists were either killed off much too early or were just not very well fleshed out. Female romantic character was not well written and seemed cardboard. But an intesting start. ( )