By Bonnie Kozek
Genre: Mystery/Thriller - Noir
Publisher: iUniverse, Inc.
ISBN 978-0-595-49758-4
Reviewed by Ron Fortier for Pulp Fiction Reviews
REVIEW:
This book kicked me in the teeth. It’s an ugly slice of life few of
us ever get to see, or want to for that matter. Which is why turning
its pages was like sparring with a heavyweight. Every few scenes you
get your jaw rocked and your gut punched. It hurts like hell, but
once the literary adrenalin starts juicing, there’s no way you are
going to stop. Of course the challenge here is to try and tell you
what Bonnie Kozek writes like, when it’s damn near impossible. She’s
an original. Imagine what kind of hard boiled fiction Mickey Spillane
would have given us if he’d been a she? A sassy, angry, tough,
twenty-first century dame with a story to tell. That’s Ms. Kozek.
Honey McGuinness grew up with a suicidal mother who wanted to share
eternity with her. Only problem is, mom didn’t want to wait until
nature ran its course and opted to punch both their tickets by taking
a flying leap off a high-rise. She died, Honey lived. Sex, drugs and
a little rock and roll, the girl walked on the wild side until it all
became home, one she has no intentions of ever leaving.
“… what was I afraid of? I’d ingested, digested, shoved up my ass,
and shot into my bloodstream every kind of consciousness-numbing
intoxicant, narcotic, and medication known to man – and whatever I
missed in my later years my sick-o mother shoved down my throat in the
first sixteen. I was experienced, stoned and beautiful.”
When one of Honey’s homeless friends is gunned down in front of her
apartment and left to bleed to death, her bleak, comfy world is
shattered. Especially when she finds Billy was wired and the machine
tape is still on his body. Was he a helpless pawn of the cops? A
patsy sent into the drug flooded streets to be sacrificed to the scum?
Honey believed her heart had turned to stone long ago but with
Billy’s murder, she realizes, much to her own utter disbelief, that
she gives a damn. Then she finds an unlikely ally in a
goody-two-shoes rookie cop named Skinner. All of which propels Honey
on yet another personal voyage through hell to uncover a truth too
many powerful people want hidden permanently.
Threshold is a brutal, take-no-prisoners adult thriller that paints a disturbing, factual picture of a culture most Americans will never
know. Thank God for that. Whereas the fact that people do live like
this is a crime against all mankind. Bravo to Bonnie Kozek for having
the guts to write about it. My only question is, why was this book
published by a small, unknown publisher? If any book deserved to be a
Hard Case Crime title, it’s this one. They just don’t come any
meaner.
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