Review: Beyond Vengeance by Larry Igbon

For anyone who can’t get enough British thrillers, Beyond Vengeance by Larry Igbon is an absolute must-read. As only a true master of action can deliver, this book careens from one wild scene to the next, from brutal murder scenes and vicious gangsters to the relentless hounding of the London coppers. With mystery and suspense tied up beautifully within this fascinating knot of a plot, Igbon has solidified his place among top writers of the genre.

A powerful crime family in England is all but wiped out, and yet someone is coming to exact justice and make those responsible pay – with their lives. However, this mysterious serial killers is not only single-minded, but also brilliant, and it takes an equally determined genius on the police force to bring his violent streak to an end.

The character development of the main players is expertly done, and even for short-lived characters, Igbon delivers visceral and highly memorable appearances. If you are an Anglophile, the babbling buzz of British speech dazzles, and the soul of the city is captured in these pages. Every master storyteller has a magical way with words that can be bent to any genre, and this book is clear evidence of Igbon’s talent for writing a page-turning plot mixed with gritty reality.

As the stakes rise and the blood keeps flowing, the inevitable climax and face-off is always seemingly around the corner, and the entire plot winds remarkably tight until the extremely satisfying conclusion. Igbon never gives away too much, and while some readers may fancy themselves quite clever in putting together the pieces of this story, there are more than a few red herrings and tricks up the author’s sleeve.

Technically speaking, the book is well-edited with few errors, aside from the occasional clunky sentence or sloppy piece of colloquial speech. In some of the more crowded scenes, the characters occasionally get confusing, and some of the pronoun usage is poorly done, but those instances are rare and quickly moved past. Some of the procedural elements of the police work could have been shortened, and most of the dull moments are related in some way to that. The seedy underbelly of England is a fascinating place to explore, but it’s important to keep the reader engaged and intrigued from start to finish.

This novel is a sleepless night waiting to happen for avid thriller readers, because this oddly moral tale has more twists and turns than pages. The pacing of the book never lets the reader relax for too long, adding a constant level of suspense. The chapter length and the rapid, cut-shot style of the writing adds to this effect, which makes it very difficult to put this novel down.

There aren’t a lot of books that fall into this category, but this is one novel that won’t disappoint. Falling within a range of genres, and knocking it out of the park in each of them, Beyond Vengeance is not to be missed.