Order HURT HAWKS here
(also reviewed)
Order PRODIGAL SONS here - Read the Review
Lots of people entertain the misconception that writing talent alone will get you anywhere in the publishing business. That industry professionals will bend over backwards if you have a good story to tell. It is, unfortunately, only a minor variable in a long and complex equation that lead to immortality. Now, the internet is not exactly littered with misunderstood geniuses, but obsessive gold miners like me do stumble upon one from time to time. It's possible you've seen Mike Miner's name float around on social media in recent years because Hurt Hawks is not his first novel. It is although where he reveals the scope of his incredible talent to his unwitting audience. This book is not only solid, it's one of the best things I've read all year.
The back cover blurb doesn't do Hurt Hawks any justice whatsoever. In all fairness it couldn't have because it's not a story you can resume in a single paragraph. I'll try my best anyway. Captain Patrick Donovan once was a fearsome special ops commanding officer. His life changed after he tried to settle a personal grudge in a middle of a conflict far greater than himself and ended up botching an assassination attempt that left Sergeant Chris Rogers paralyzed and a shell of his former self. Rogers took a bullet to the spine while saving the Captain's platoon from a certain death. When Donovan learns about Rogers' violent death up in Dorchester, Massachusetts, he temporarily leaves his job as a cartel enforcers and flies in to deliver justice to the departed.
Now, let's unpack this short, but gorgeous novel, shall we?
Mike Miner is both a stylist and an elite storyteller, which is something incredibly rare. Thes first things about Hurt Hawks that blew me away were Miner's effortless rhythm and economy of language. His sentences are short, bare, yet truffled with intimate details and vivid similes. The first chapter of Hurt Hawks is a master class in the exercise. It gave the entire novel a reason to be. Mike Miner has an impressive control over his writing. Chapters vary in length greatly, but not a moment outstays its welcome. It's impressive. There's a thirty pages chapter in the beginning and some that aren't much longer than a paragraph and both are equally riveting. Hurt Hawks is great partly because of Miner's impressive control over his style and storytelling. There is not one lazy sentence in that book. Not one tired image. It has achieved creative zen.
Whiskey could bring down a curtain between the drinker and the world, between a man and his troubles. Jameson's could make it hard to remember. Donovan climbed into a bottle. Lost track of the days. Sometimes his memory got so bad, he forgot King was dead.
If any summary of Hurt Hawks can't possibly do it justice, it's because it's not just one story: it's two storylines that collide together to become one. I wouldn't blame you to think that a special forces platoon invading town to avenge the widow and orphan of their unwitting benefactor is a corny and far fetched excuse for a story and neither would Mike Miner. A great portion of Hurt Hawks is spent exploring the growing relationship between Captain Patrick Donovan and the act of killing, from the budding sense of duty of special forces to the brutality of the Sonoran desert. I wouldn't called Donovan a bad guy per se, but he wears the stench of death on his clothes and lives with the ghosts of his victims surrounding him. There's a lot of ghosts flying around in Hurt Hawks to be honest and it's one of the rare novels that makes an other corny concept work.
Now, I wouldn't say Hurt Hawks is a perfect novel. Only a handful are and it would be unfair to ask perfection out of any story, but every fumble in Hurt Hawks is blown out of proportion because of how good it is. For example, the novel tends to slightly dip into melodrama at times. The characters will blurt intense lines in moments that require subtlety and intimacy. It's also not the most spontaneous novel. Don't get me wrong, it's a fascinating reading but it "feels like writing" at times. Hurt Hawks offers few moments of reader's transcendence, but it does offer some. These kind of issues usually are the result of an author not really understanding how good he/she is at writing.
Don't let these minor quirks keep you from reading Hurt Hawks though. It would be a silly thing to do and you would pass on a great adventure/vengeance novel that could've very well been a killer Western if it had been written in another era. I was not expecting Hurt Hawks to be this good because Miner's prior novel Prodigal Sons was pleasant without really blowing me away. This is a different animal. I know you can only take my word for it before you open the novel by yourself, but you're welcome anyway. Consider the Mike Miner bandwagon up and running, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your driver and I would advise you to hop aboard while there is still place because this bad boy is going to the top sooner than later.
BADASS
BADASS