‘Cold Spot,”Coldest Mile’ thrilling reads

  Several years ago, a friend recommended Tom Piccirilli to me, and I purchased a couple of his horror novels in paperback. The books then proceeded to sit on my shelf for more than two years before I finally gave them to another friend, having never read them. I never gave the author another thought.
  A few months ago, Duane Swierczynski (author of “The Wheelman”) recommended a number of writers and book titles to his blog readers. One book that caught my attention was “The Cold Spot” by Piccirilli, but this wasn’t a horror novel. This was a noir novel about a young wheelman who worked with his grandfather’s crew, pulling heists and bank jobs, and how he attempts to break away from the man he fears only to have to ask his grandfather (a stone-cold killer) a few years later for help in finding the man who murdered his wife.
  This sounded interesting!
  Also, the sequel to it, “The Coldest Mile,” was due out, so I took a chance and ordered both of them at the same time. These two books arrived a week later and then sat on my shelf for two months while I worked my way through a number of other titles. Finally, I picked up “The Cold Spot” and read it in an amazing two days, which is fast for me. I then placed an immediate order for more of Piccirilli’s books, including some of those horror novels that I’d never read. Piccirilli is a damn good writer of crime fiction and I now consider myself a die-hard fan of his work. Now, let’s take a look at the two books that have me jumping up and down like a kid at a birthday party — “The Cold Spot” and “The Coldest Mile.”
  “The Cold Spot” is the story of Michael Chase (aka Chase), whose pregnant mother was murdered when he was 10 years old and whose father later committed suicide. Chase is taken in by his grandfather, Jonah, a career criminal and killer. Over the next six years, Jonah teaches Chase everything he knows about bank heists, robberies, the con, how to kill, and how to be the best wheelman in the country. The whole relationship between Chase and his grandfather, however, comes to a head after a successful heist. During the getaway, one of the members of the crew plays a joke with a fish from the nearby market. Jonah later kills him for it. When Chase confronts his grandfather about the murder of his only friend, the look in Jonah’s eyes warns him to back off or he’ll be next in line for a bullet. Chase then ends his relationship with Jonah and the crew. He heads down south to start a new life and eventually meets Lila, a deputy sheriff in a small Mississippi town. It’s love at first sight. Chase straightens up his life, marries Lila and has several happy years, until the day she’s killed while trying to stop a crew from robbing a diamond merchant. It’s then that Chase realizes that if he wants to get some revenge, he’s going to have to find Jonah and ask for his help.
  Piccirilli has created two fantastic characters in Chase and Jonah. These are two tough men who eventually will have to face off against each other, and only one of them will walk away. Until that moment arrives, the reader is in for a thrill-ride into the dark and shadowy world of grifters and con artists and bank robbers and the world’s greatest wheelman. Chase is a character you immediately root for. Though he’s done bad things, he’s not a bad person. He basically only fights to protect himself and his family, but God help the person who does him wrong.
  The writing in “The Cold Spot” is tight and fast-paced, while the action and violence hits you squarely in the chest like a .44 magnum bullet. If you enjoy noir crime novels, then this will be a book you won’t be able to put down. Even better, when you do reach the last page, there’s the knowledge that “The Coldest Mile’ picks up exactly where “The Cold Spot” ends.
  In “The Coldest Mile,” Chase needs time to recover from the bullet wounds he got during his battle with the crew of killers who murdered his wife, Lila. He figures the way to do this and maybe pull down another score is to work for the Langan mob family as a driver. The patriarch of the family is on his deathbed, and his lovely, but deadly, daughter is planning to kill her brother once Daddy is finally gone. Along with that, the family business is downsizing and moving to Chicago due to the Russian, Jamaican, and Thai mobs trying to muscle in on their territory. This is the chaotic situation that Chase finds himself in when he’s hired not as a driver or wheelman, but rather as a chauffeur. The last chauffeur had his throat cut right in front of Chase. Refusing to wear a chauffeur’s hat or the white gloves, Chase clearly knows his days are numbered, especially when the family’s daughter, Sherry, offers herself to him and he politely says no to the enticing invitation. No woman likes being rejected by the chauffeur.
  What Chase has to do is make a big enough score, get out of Dodge, and head to Sarasota, Fla., to locate his grandfather Jonah before the old man can destroy the life of a 2-year-old girl. Chase knows in his heart that either he or Jonah will die in this final confrontation. Still, he has no choice because the ghosts of his wife and mother are telling him to save this little girl … the girl whose mother was shot in the head by Jonah … the girl who happens to be his grandfather’s daughter.
  Like “The Cold Spot,” this sequel weaves and turns at neck-breaking speeds, catching the reader off-guard as it suddenly heads in a new, unexpected direction, though the ultimate destination is still Jonah and his infant daughter, Kylie. Piccirilli pulls no punches with the violence and meanness of some characters, leaving the reader feeling as if he or she has touched something slimy and disgusting. Chase certainly has his hands full as he seeks to find that cold spot within himself so that he can do whatever is necessary to save the child, and that means killing fast without hesitation and emotion. The author also knows how to create intriguing characters with just a few short sentences that almost seem to explode outward from the page, and his writing is lean and mean just like Jonah, daring you to put the book down for even a second.
 “The Coldest Mile” is every bit as good as “The Cold Spot” and worthy of all the awards given to novels in this genre. This is a new series that you’ll want to be continued, and the ending of the second book does leave it open for a third as Chase learns who killed his mother and why, creating a turmoil and anger inside him. These are two novels that give me goosebumps every time I think about them. Few authors can do that to me with their fiction, but Piccirilli is no ordinary writer. This is a man offering to take you on an adventure that will change your life and your prospective about who you are as a human being. You may not like what you discover as your heart beats rapidly in your chest, but there’s no turning back once that first page is read.