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Hailey’s War by Jodi Compton
The Blurb On The Back:
Introducing a fierce, fearless heroine you’ll never forget …
Twenty-three-year-old Hailey Cain is going nowhere fast. A bike messenger on the free-for-all streets of San Francisco, she’s trying to outrun her failure to graduate from the United States Military Academy, as well as the tragic accident that forced her to leave Los Angeles.
When an old high school friend, now a career criminal, calls asking for a favour, it seems like an easy job: drive a naïve teenage girl home to her family’s village in rural Mexico. But on an isolated highway, Hailey and her charge drive into a calculated ambush from seven heavily-armed men. Hailey is shot. The firl disappears.
When Hailey finally recovers, the only thing she knows is that everything she thought she knew was wrong. The smart thing would be to go home and lick her wounds in private. But Hailey is through with doing the smart thing, the easy thing, the safe thing. Instead, with little more than resolve, she goes on a mission for answers … and for justice.
23-year-old Hailey Cain’s been on a downward spiral since dropping out of West Point in her final year. After holing up with her cousin CJ (a successful music producer) in LA, a tragic accident forces her to move to San Francisco where she’s working as a bike messenger when she gets a phone call from an old school friend, Serena (now head of a gang of Latina gangsters) asking for a favour. Serena wants her to accompany a young teenage girl called Nidia whose gangbanger boyfriend’s just died over the border to a remote Mexican village.
Hailey agrees but as soon as they’re over the border, they’re ambushed by a group of men who take Nidia. Hailey’s left for dead but against all the odds, Hailey survives and instead of walking away, decides to find out what happened to Nidia, even though the men who attacked her won’t hesitate to finish the job if offered a second chance …
Jodi Compton’s thriller, the first in a series, is a tightly written novel with a brave and resourceful heroine but the plot relies heavily on contrivance to keep the story moving, which I rapidly found irritating.
Hailey’s got a good first person voice and Compton does well at smoothly bringing in her family history and why West Point was so important to her. I liked her fondness for Latin and believed in the way she tried to lose herself after dropping out. However it soon becomes clear that every personal detail she’s raising will become important later on, which robbed the plot of much of its tension. Hailey makes a point of not mentioning why she left West Point and although this is supposed to make the reader curious, I found that I was able to guess and I felt that when it was revealed, it was shoe-horned in too clumsily.
I actually found Serena to be more interesting than Hailey. Forced into the gang life, she’s made it on her own terms and looks after her girls. I liked the way she cared about Hailey (albeit in gang terms) and Compton does well at showing her vulnerability and the disadvantages of the life she’s chosen.
All in all, it’s not a bad thriller but my attention did wane in the last quarter and I’m really not sure that I care enough about Hailey to want to read on.
Review copy from publisher.
The Verdict:
Jodi Compton’s thriller, the first in a series, is a tightly written novel with a brave and resourceful heroine but the plot relies heavily on contrivance to keep the story moving, which I rapidly found irritating. All in all, it’s not a bad thriller but my attention did wane in the last quarter and I’m really not sure that I care enough about the main character to want to read on.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the free copy of this book.
Twenty-three-year-old Hailey Cain is going nowhere fast. A bike messenger on the free-for-all streets of San Francisco, she’s trying to outrun her failure to graduate from the United States Military Academy, as well as the tragic accident that forced her to leave Los Angeles.
When an old high school friend, now a career criminal, calls asking for a favour, it seems like an easy job: drive a naïve teenage girl home to her family’s village in rural Mexico. But on an isolated highway, Hailey and her charge drive into a calculated ambush from seven heavily-armed men. Hailey is shot. The firl disappears.
When Hailey finally recovers, the only thing she knows is that everything she thought she knew was wrong. The smart thing would be to go home and lick her wounds in private. But Hailey is through with doing the smart thing, the easy thing, the safe thing. Instead, with little more than resolve, she goes on a mission for answers … and for justice.
23-year-old Hailey Cain’s been on a downward spiral since dropping out of West Point in her final year. After holing up with her cousin CJ (a successful music producer) in LA, a tragic accident forces her to move to San Francisco where she’s working as a bike messenger when she gets a phone call from an old school friend, Serena (now head of a gang of Latina gangsters) asking for a favour. Serena wants her to accompany a young teenage girl called Nidia whose gangbanger boyfriend’s just died over the border to a remote Mexican village.
Hailey agrees but as soon as they’re over the border, they’re ambushed by a group of men who take Nidia. Hailey’s left for dead but against all the odds, Hailey survives and instead of walking away, decides to find out what happened to Nidia, even though the men who attacked her won’t hesitate to finish the job if offered a second chance …
Jodi Compton’s thriller, the first in a series, is a tightly written novel with a brave and resourceful heroine but the plot relies heavily on contrivance to keep the story moving, which I rapidly found irritating.
Hailey’s got a good first person voice and Compton does well at smoothly bringing in her family history and why West Point was so important to her. I liked her fondness for Latin and believed in the way she tried to lose herself after dropping out. However it soon becomes clear that every personal detail she’s raising will become important later on, which robbed the plot of much of its tension. Hailey makes a point of not mentioning why she left West Point and although this is supposed to make the reader curious, I found that I was able to guess and I felt that when it was revealed, it was shoe-horned in too clumsily.
I actually found Serena to be more interesting than Hailey. Forced into the gang life, she’s made it on her own terms and looks after her girls. I liked the way she cared about Hailey (albeit in gang terms) and Compton does well at showing her vulnerability and the disadvantages of the life she’s chosen.
All in all, it’s not a bad thriller but my attention did wane in the last quarter and I’m really not sure that I care enough about Hailey to want to read on.
Review copy from publisher.
The Verdict:
Jodi Compton’s thriller, the first in a series, is a tightly written novel with a brave and resourceful heroine but the plot relies heavily on contrivance to keep the story moving, which I rapidly found irritating. All in all, it’s not a bad thriller but my attention did wane in the last quarter and I’m really not sure that I care enough about the main character to want to read on.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the free copy of this book.