Eight stars
Having newly discovered Dharma Kelleher and her genre of biker thriller (??), I was eager to see if her past life experiences could fluidly translate into an effective novel this being her debut. Shea Stevens has been running the Iron Goddess, a custom motorcycle shop, for the past number of years. In doing what she loves, Shea has been able to put her criminal past in the proverbial rearview mirror. When she arrives to discover she’s been robbed of a major custom order and one of her employees has been shot, she cannot help but see red. Curious as to who might be responsible, Shea contemplates the Confederate Thunder, a local biker gang with whom she has a sordid past; her reprobate father having been their president in her youth. With few clues, Shea makes the gamble and reached out to her estranged sister, Wendy, who is married to the current president of the Thunder, a man with little to no respect for anyone, including his family. While trying to learn if Confederate Thunder might be responsible, Shea learns that her niece has been kidnapped, potentially by a rival Mexican gang. Forced to work with her brother-in-law, Shea has flashbacks of her own youth and vows to help Wendy get out of the life before she ends up dead. When the kidnappers reach out, Shea does all she can help, which puts her in many precarious positions of her own. Further clues might tie the kidnappers to the break-in at the Iron Goddess, but there is another more sinister revelation that rocks the Arizona community, a stone’s throw from the heart of Phoenix. Kelleher tells a powerful story with ease and pulls the reader in so effortlessly. A must read for those looking to branch out in their thriller genre reading.
I admit I know little about motorcycles or their affiliated gangs, outside of my obsession with SAMCRO for seven seasons. However, when I learned of Kelleher and her writing, I thought I would see if it parallels what I knew about the ‘life’. Everything fits nicely and I felt in the middle of a local charter that has enemies all around it and the police sniffing around. Kelleher not only builds up a number of decent bikers as characters, but is able to offset the life that Shea is seeking to shed with a bright future before her. Layering numerous plot lines together, as Kelleher has done, can be risky, as the reader must be invested in them all for it to work out well. The novel balances everything and offers just enough of each plot to keep the story moving forward and the reader from getting lost in the shuffle. There is much to be said of this, alongside the quick chapters that tease just enough information out so as to push the reader a little further. I am eager to rev things up and get into the second Shea Stevens thriller, just as soon as I can cool my engines and get this review posted.
Kudos, Madam Kelleher for a wonderful debut in the realm of novel writing. If this is anything like some of the other ideas you have, you will gather a following quickly and without issue.
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