Lawyer Michael Cowan’s new crime novel, John B Peoples, is a fascinating trip through the ambiguous places where the ragged edges of law, ethics and justice meet up. For a book of fewer than 250 pages, it packs in a lot!
John Peoples is a middle-aged, middle-level salesman of advanced communications systems to businesses, universities, hospitals and the like in Los Angeles, California. Middlingly successful, too. His adored teenage daughter lives with his ex-wife, and he lives in the converted garage of his best friend from high school.
A busted ACL in his teens ended the possibility of a pro football career. His life isn’t terrible, by any means, but he doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. It took me a little while to warm up to him; he’s so simultaneously unfocused and impulsive.
Probably the greatest annoyance in John’s life, other than his ex-wife, is his overbearing boss. Ed White is, in John’s opinion, a complete jerk. One day, after a promising sales call together, they stop at a mini-mart for a cold drink and cigarettes, and Ed buys a lottery ticket. They agree to split any winnings, as the jackpot has escalated to $40 million, and laugh about the remote possibility of that happening.
Ed barely lets John see and record the numbers before snatching the ticket away, and John doesn’t want to set off Ed’s vicious temper by insisting on signing the back of the ticket. If only he’d written ‘John B. Peoples’ there!
You know what’s coming.
Yes, they do win, and John wants his share. But Ed refuses to talk to him. He’s taken medical leave from the company. No one knows where he is. Nor is John the most thoughtful about how to persuade Ed to talk to him. In one really poor move, he initiates a high-speed car chase on a notoriously busy Los Angeles freeway. Ed gets away, but John’s car is wrecked, and so is he.
John suffers an incomplete spinal cord injury that leaves him first in the hospital, in surgery to place plates and screws in his back, then in rehab, then in a wheelchair, then on crutches. We see him struggle through the physical and emotional strains of this process, kept motivated mostly by one goal: revenge. For the rest of the book, doctors really cannot predict how much mobility he’ll eventually recover.
There are significant bright spots, though. His daughter is devoted, realistic about his recovery and completely supportive. Very unteenagery. His friends find him a good lawyer to sue the highway department, and that goes well. Poorly placed barrels at the exit contributed to the crash. John and the lawyer’s partner develop a romantic attachment, which goes a long way to restoring his psyche. When he’s finally able to return to work, he has a new boss who is miles above Ed in understanding and leadership.
Yet, John cannot let go of the problem of Ed.
Taking him to court might not accomplish much, because John did not sign that ticket. In any event, Ed appears to have left the country, so any kind of legal proceeding is unlikely. Where the law unravels, moral outrage picks up the slack. His friends and family know he’s planning something and try to talk him out of it but John is determined to get what he believes is due him. He’s so strikingly, frustratingly human, I had to be on his side, whether or not I agreed with him.
His quest takes him to Paris and Marseille, where he interacts with a number of characters who are not troubled by plans that skirt not only the letter of the law, but also its intentions.
He makes choices you may not agree with or may wholly support. I suspect different readers will see these issues differently. You may say, ‘It’s only money; let it go’; on the other hand, you may ask, ‘Why should Ed the Awful, a man who can’t even keep his word, get it all?’
As John moves forward with his plans, which naturally have their flaws, in true John B Peoples’ style, the succession of moral and ethical questions he presents you with keeps this book deeply engaging.
Also see The Revenge List by Hannah Mary McKinnon or Vengeance is Mine by Steven Torres.
Koehler Books
Print/Kindle
£14.01
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
