THE HEARTBREAK LOUNGE Is an Excellent Early Novel from Wallace Stroby

This is an excellent early novel from Wallace Stroby who would go on to write the Crissa Stone series, which remains one of my all-time favorites. The protagonist here is Harry Rane, a former New Jersey state trooper. The woman he loves has gone off to Seattle "to think things over," and Harry is left to bide his time, medicating himself with whatever will help him make it through the night, while praying that she ultimately decides to come back to him.

While killing time, Harry goes to work for a P.I. firm owned by another ex-trooper and takes on a case involving a woman named Nikki Ellis, a former "adult entertainer." Nikki was once in a relationship with a thug named Johnny Harrow. Shortly after Harrow went away to prison for attempted murder, Nikki gave birth to their son and, in an effort to do what was best for the child, gave it up for adoption.

The problem is that she didn't consult Johnny about her decision and he's furious about it. Now, after seven years, Harrow is out of prison two years early and is on his way back to Jersey to claim what's his and to settle some old scores with Nikki and with a mobster he once worked for, among others. He has dreams of tracking down and taking his son and riding off into the sunset once he's accomplished his objectives. Nikki comes to the agency, desperately afraid that somehow, Harrow will break the code of secrecy that was supposed to surround the adoption process and find her son. She wants Harry to protect her and to ensure that Harrow won't find the boy.

It's going to be a lot harder than it sounds. Harrow is totally amoral, very resourceful and seems to have a powerful patron who just might be able to break through the red tape and find the boy. Harrow casually disposes of anyone who stands in his path, and before the dust has settled, Harry Ranes will be his number one target.

This is a very bleak, hard-boiled novel with desperate characters living on the thin edge of disaster. The story moves at a rapid clip and one of the things that struck me most about the book was the humanity of the characters, Harry and Nikki in particular. These are real, believable people, trapped in circumstances that threaten to overwhelm them at almost any moment. You care for them immediately and that significantly ratchets up the tension in the novel. All of it builds to a stunning climax and this book demonstrates all over again why Wallace Stroby is one of the true bright lights in contemporary crime fiction. A must for fans of the hard-boiled genre.