cover image Scorch

Scorch

Marc Paoletti, . . Five Star, $25.95 (299pp) ISBN 978-1-59414-657-2

Having worked in Hollywood as a pyrotechnician, Paoletti provides an authentic backdrop for his debut, an otherwise routine revenge thriller. When David Cole, an ex-Navy SEAL and veteran of the first Gulf War who’s the special effects supervisor on a movie set that resembles an Iraqi battlefield, fires a couple of incompetent underlings, Ned Brandenburg and Levar Watkins, the two resolve to make Cole pay a deadly price. Brandenburg and Watkins team with Frank Ruger, a psychotic former military colleague of Cole’s, who blames Cole for his dishonorable discharge. Though Cole survives the death trap Ruger sets for him with severe burns, Cole’s 21-year-old son dies in the blast. While Cole has no plausible motive for killing his beloved son, he becomes the prime suspect in the crime. The brutal violence and lack of psychological depth limit this one’s appeal. (May)