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NoirNovels.com - A unique repository for all things noir
Derailed
Reviewed By Steve Nester James Siegel's debut novel Derailed is a psychological thriller that relies on scams, blackmail, trust, betrayal, identity-mistaken and falsified, and revenge served as cold as the recipe calls for. The story begins when a civilian writing instructor at Attica State prison is given in installments a story that twists with scams, blackmail, betrayal and sounds exactly like what happened to him several years before when evil disguised proved too tempting to resist. Advertising executive and family man Charles Schine is only skivvies away from consummating a tryst in a seedy Times Square hotel with the drop-dead gorgeous Lucinda when a violent criminal barges into the room. Lucinda is brutally raped and Charles is savagely beaten. Raul Vasquez is a career criminal, a psychotic, and a reoccurring nightmare. Not only is Vasquez intent upon blackmailing Schine into the poorhouse, he enjoys playing the excruciating mind games that only a cruel and confident sociopath could relish in, such as entering Charles' house while posing as a chimney repairman: he's very real and becomes a very lethal player in the lives of Lucinda and Charles. One bad decision follows the next, as blackmail, embezzlement, grand larceny and murder fall into Charles' life almost as easily as his would-be lover did the day they met on the 9:05 to Penn Station. With detectives on his trail for attempted murder, his job in jeopardy, and the threatening blackmailer upping the ante, Charles comes clean to his wife, Deanna, and begins to turn the heat on his foes. Charles sets a trap to rid himself of his blackmailer and, a wanted man himself until the very end, is able to escape his past and make a new life with his wife and sickly daughter. Suspenseful to the very last page, James Siegel looks at the world through Alfred Hitchcock colored glasses and to his credit sees clearly enough to credibly report on it to the reader without any lack of imagination or mimicking of the master. The small movements of individuals that make for resounding changes in the plot and in the fortunes of others abound in a manner that is believable to the reader. Charles begins a downward spiral and is no longer in control of his life. His best intentions go awry to create even larger problems and fate is against the good guys no matter what their intentions. Not everyone is who they say they are, and Siegel uses identity and the illusion of identity with dexterity while not becoming clumsy or clich. The hunter becomes the prey in Derailed and the reader is kept busy pursuing the strands of plot, which only come together at the very end of the book. |
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