She Rides Shotgun in EBMRG

Jun 08, 2017 LJ rated it it was amazing

Shelves: male_author, contemporary_post_1945, suspense, california

First Sentence: His skin told his history in tattoos and knife scars.

Nate McClusky is about to be released from prison. Rather than act as a soldier for the Aryan Steel, he ends up killing a high-ranking member and having a warrant to greenlight his murder, as well as that of his ex-wife, her new husband, and his 11-year-old daughter Polly. He is too late to save the first two, but he is determined to do everything possible to save Polly even if it means putting her in extreme danger.

Polly is First Sentence: His skin told his history in tattoos and knife scars.

Nate McClusky is about to be released from prison. Rather than act as a soldier for the Aryan Steel, he ends up killing a high-ranking member and having a warrant to greenlight his murder, as well as that of his ex-wife, her new husband, and his 11-year-old daughter Polly. He is too late to save the first two, but he is determined to do everything possible to save Polly even if it means putting her in extreme danger.

Polly is one of those characters one can’t help but like from the very beginning. Everything about her is unique and special—“She moved the bear with practiced hands so he stood on her lap and looked around. She had practiced with him for hours and hours so he moved with a liquid sort of grace, like a true and living thing.”… “Poly read about this pearl planet with a storm inside it and the thought burped full-formed out of Polly’s brain: I’m from Venus. That was the way Poly felt, that outside she was quiet and calm, but inside her acid winds roared. She’d never known why she’d been that way, so quiet on the outside but inside so scream loud, but now she knew. I’m from Venus.”

Nate, too, is unusual. Rooting for the anti-hero, the ex-con, isn’t a position in which one usually finds oneself. Yet here, one does. He knows who, and what, he is. He has a true awareness of self, and a focused determination. Detective Park is equally rare; a cop who is willing to change his focus and is committed to the case even after everyone else has lost interest—“The media has lost interest the second week. A starlet found floating facedown in a Hollywood Hills home had grabbed the spotlight. The media was a living organism, and it ate beautiful dead things.”

With each character, especially Polly, one can’t help but feel a bit of sorrow and regret, no matter what happens. Harper takes one into a world you know exists, but not in detail. He shows you the details so one will never be able to quite forget them—“That soon as you found something to live for, you found something to die for too. But he guessed in the end it was a good trade.”

There are simple statements of truth—“Some things get replaced, she thought, and some things never will.”—and bits of information; i.e., how felons communicate with the outside, and bullet wounds. These are things, thankfully, outside most people’s lives, but are part of reality.

Harper has such a fine writer’s voice. He conveys both actions and emotions in simple sentences—“Park hit the apartment complex at speed. … He left the car in the fire zone, fuck-you-I’m-a-cop style. He double-timed the stairs to Carla’s apartment. Bam bam bam on the door, fuck-you-I’m-a-cop style.” Harper doesn’t rely on cliché tricks or even on plot twists. Instead, there are small surprises that alter the trajectory just slightly. There is violence and brutality, but it is never gratuitous nor is it overly graphic, yet one does feel the sense of it.

“She Rode Shotgun” is not an emotionally easy or comfortable book to read. One is acutely aware of the “what if’s” associated with each character, especially Polly. It is, however, an exceptional book with remarkable characters.

SHE RIDES SHOTGUN (Susp-Polly/Nate McClusky-California-Contemp) - Ex
Harper, Jordan – 1st book
ECCO – June, 2017

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Jul 04, 2018 Kathy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorite-covers, highly-recommend, crime-thriller

Reading a book that comes so highly recommended from other reviewers and readers in the mystery/crime community is a bit daunting. Starting from a point of feeling a need to love a book is not my favorite place to start, so I had put off its reading until I finally could no longer ignore the accolades it has received. So, wow! I'm now in my favorite place of loving a book that so many friends have loved and joining in its praise. The overriding successful feature of She Rides Shotgun for me is i Reading a book that comes so highly recommended from other reviewers and readers in the mystery/crime community is a bit daunting. Starting from a point of feeling a need to love a book is not my favorite place to start, so I had put off its reading until I finally could no longer ignore the accolades it has received. So, wow! I'm now in my favorite place of loving a book that so many friends have loved and joining in its praise. The overriding successful feature of She Rides Shotgun for me is its originality and turning that originality into a story of non-stop, thrilling action. Do readers really want to read about an eleven-year-old girl who is on the run with her ex-convict dad? Oh, yes, they do. Its unique set-up takes the reader on a journey that is violent and so outside the box of normality that you'd think it might be implausible, but it is mesmerizing and real and completely captivating. It will take you out of your comfort zone, but you will be unable to put the book down until you finish the wild ride.

Nate McClusky makes a big mistake shortly before he is to be released from prison. He kills Crazy Craig Hollington’s brother, and Crazy Craig, who is the leader of the Ayran Steel white supremacist gang, puts out an order from his jail cell to kill Nate, his ex-wife Avis, and their daughter Polly. This green light to kill goes out to all the members in and out of prison, and Avis and her new husband are dead before Nate can warn her. But, eleven-year-old Polly, who shares steel blue eyes with her father, is just leaving school when Nate meets up with her and snatches her away to begin a dangerous race against an unyielding enemy. Despite the odds, Nate is determined to save Polly, but the effort will change them both in ways they never imagined.

Along with this story’s originality, Jordan Harper has created characters that will deeply affect the reader. I expect Polly and Nate to stay with me no matter how many books I read in the future. Polly first presents as a shy, bullied child who carries a stuffed bear with her everywhere to shield her and comfort her. Nate is a hardened career criminal who has no time for softness or feelings. But they must come together and work together if they are to survive. The author does a brilliant job of revealing how a person can be both dark and good, and how liking a character is more complicated than their actions. The brutal world that Nate and Polly must navigate is one foreign to most readers, but it is one that exists, and it is an exceptional writer that can bring such a world into view in a compelling story that doesn’t leave one despondent
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Nov 24, 2020 Kasa Cotugno rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: genre-crime-thriller, loc-usa-ca-s

Although this is not the sort of book I usually pick up, I chose it because I thought it would be a quick sorbet, also because it had been highly recommended by others whose opinion I trust. What jumped out immediately was how highly literary it was from page one, not cheap in its depictions or characterizations, satisfactory in plot and morality. Gritty to be sure, but not gratuitously so. And given that this is a debut (!!), it will be exciting to see where Jordan Harper goes next. "It doesn't ...more

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Jan 28, 2018 Linda rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2018, book-club-future

First Line: First Sentence: "His skin told his history in tattoos and knife scars."

This violent, gritty story of the relationship between an ex-con and his 11 year old daughter (whom he's just met) reminded me a lot of "The Professional" with the young Natalie Portman. Similar to the film, things that should have appalled me instead felt right and good under the circumstances.