PEOPLE DIE
Kevin Wignall
Pinnacle
Thriller
ISBN: 9780786020867
I do not know much about Kevin Wignall. The most important thing I can tell you at this point is that he writes excellent books that revolve around hit men. I am grateful for the re-release of PEOPLE DIE, his debut novel, which is in a class all by itself.
The protagonist of PEOPLE DIE is a hit man named JJ. He is rather young --- under 30 --- but very accomplished, carrying out his trade on an international scale. The book opens with JJ executing a businessman in Moscow, incidentally catching him in flagrante delicto with a woman who is much too young. He breaks his own rule and lets her walk away, even as he regrets his occupational largesse, convinced that it will come back to haunt him. Two years later, JJ suddenly finds that he and everyone connected with the Moscow assignment have inexplicably been targeted for elimination. There are very few people he can trust, and his pragmatic culling of friends turned enemies as PEOPLE DIE proceeds is surprisingly chilling in its matter-of-factness.
One of JJ’s few remaining trustworthy friends is a CIA agent who in turn refers him to a colleague who had a tangential association with the Moscow job. The situs of their meeting is a surprising one and sets the novel apart from the usual work of the thriller genre. JJ finds himself traveling to New England to meet with his shadowy ally at a bed and breakfast run by the family of his Moscow victim. What is telling here, however, is the interaction between him and his victim’s daughter, a teenager half his age who is not much younger than the woman whose life he spared in Moscow two years before. JJ is oddly attracted to this girl on the cusp of womanhood, enjoying her company and, yes, her platonic attention. Nothing improper occurs between them, either on or off the page.
What is fascinating here is Wignall’s tacit acknowledgment of the vulnerability of men to the attentions of young women, and his presentation of how such matters are properly approached and dealt with in order to give respect, not to mention protection, to the innocent. That chain of events, in combination with circumstances peaceful and otherwise in the quiet of the New England countryside, leads JJ upon a quest halfway around the world to confront the man who has unleashed a vendetta against him, a journey that may well result in his own violent death.
PEOPLE DIE is one of those rare novels that is nuanced so differently that it resonates with the reader long after the last page is turned. Yes, it’s about tradecraft and those who coldly carry it out, but in the end it’s also about people, and the unpredictable. This is a tale well-told, demonstrative of a talent that runs long and deep.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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