Pocket-47, by Jude Hardin (REVIEW) — Old Memories Die Hard in the Florida Sun

Everyone thinks they “know” Florida... whether or not they’ve ever set foot across the state line. 

 

Maybe it’s the rampant commercialism of Orlando. Key West’s breezy, laid-back cool (set to the tune of every Jimmy Buffett song ever written). South Beach’s “Miami Vice” vibes. Beach cities known for hosting raucous Spring Break parties and annual biker meets. Or maybe it’s gator-spotting in the swamps.

 

Whatever it is, we associate larger-than-life, outrageous places and people with the Sunshine State.

 

What we rarely think about are all the "normal" people with unglamorous jobs and boring lives just like the rest of us.

 

But in Pocket-47, author Jude Hardin actually combines the two “sides” of Florida, mixing regular Joes and Janes with enough of that trademark craziness and weirdness to satisfy anyone.

 

 

Nicholas Colt used to have it all—fame, fortune, and family—back when he was lead guitarist in a popular rock band. 

 

But in one fateful moment, tragedy took it all away. 

 

Now he lives in a ramshackle camper in the middle of nowhere, barely paying his bills with the low-paying jobs he scrounges up as a private investigator.

 

Then again, he’s not exactly looking hard for better clients.

 

When young nurse Leitha Ryan knocks on his door—wanting him to find Brittney, her much-younger sister who’d taken off after an argument—he isn’t thrilled.

 

Still, the bills are piling up, so he agrees to take on the job. (How hard could finding one teenager be?)

 

Things don’t pan out as expected, though.

 

None of the people in Brittney’s orbit seem particularly concerned, though, when Colt questions them.

 

Her older boyfriend doesn’t care. Neither her after-school tennis instructor nor the foster parents she used to live with know anything. 

 

Colt does, nonetheless, succeed in tracking her down... but what he finds is a terrified girl, who swears someone’s trying to kill her.

 

What follows is a frenetic few days of chases, a kidnapping, and murder.

 

But, just when Colt believes he’s figured out what’s really going on?

 

Things take an unexpected twist, which leaves Colt facing all the mental and emotional baggage he’s never dealt with—all the ghosts he’s tried so long to keep buried.

 

If he can make it through this last ordeal, he might finally be free... but if not? He might not make it, at all.

 

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Pocket-47 has all the makings early on of being another good Florida-based suspense/mystery. 

 

Hardin has a good feel for dialogue, and he‘s written believable, interesting characters. (The bonding that takes place between Colt and Brittney is surprisingly touching, in the middle of so much violence.)

 

It’s genuinely suspenseful, too—with a ready-for-movie-adaptation feel. 

For me, though, the real surprise was the pivot in the last third of the book. It took things in a totally different direction, which somehow worked out well. 
~GlamKitty