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A review by deearr
The Hack by Will Patching
4.0
Will Patching’s “The Hack” asks the reader to interpret the various shades of human behavior. Is it wrong to be a vigilante if you do so with good intentions? And if the sentence is death, is it justified if you feel the other crime is worse than murder? The author has injected these and other questions into the book, thought-provoking dilemmas that may place the reader on both sides of the law by the time the last page is read.
Having already read Mr. Patching’s “Remorseless” and “Mutilated” I expected a bluntness of description and a serious layer of grit. However, The Hack seems lighter than the other novels (if lighter is a term you can use with Patching’s books). I rightly guessed this book as the author’s first (first written and published in 2006). The constant darkness that pervades Mr. Patching’s other works is not present, and at times I felt that the story could have been written by a number of other writers.
That is, until it came time to describe the murders as well as some of the other violent scenes. Mr. Patching has a talent for presenting vicious moments as mundane, yet shocking to the reader at the same time. At these parts in the book, there was no doubt of the identity of the author.
For those who want to know, there are vulgarities in the book (although much less than Mr. Patching’s other books). There are also descriptive sex scenes, including deviant behavior.
I found the author’s comments in the back of the book revealing. Mr. Patching relates that writing the story was difficult, and as a reader I probably felt some of the same emotions. The book centers around a subject – child pornography – that is a huge problem worldwide, and the author provides many passages that will bring the issue into sharp focus for those not acutely aware of the issue. Four stars.
Having already read Mr. Patching’s “Remorseless” and “Mutilated” I expected a bluntness of description and a serious layer of grit. However, The Hack seems lighter than the other novels (if lighter is a term you can use with Patching’s books). I rightly guessed this book as the author’s first (first written and published in 2006). The constant darkness that pervades Mr. Patching’s other works is not present, and at times I felt that the story could have been written by a number of other writers.
That is, until it came time to describe the murders as well as some of the other violent scenes. Mr. Patching has a talent for presenting vicious moments as mundane, yet shocking to the reader at the same time. At these parts in the book, there was no doubt of the identity of the author.
For those who want to know, there are vulgarities in the book (although much less than Mr. Patching’s other books). There are also descriptive sex scenes, including deviant behavior.
I found the author’s comments in the back of the book revealing. Mr. Patching relates that writing the story was difficult, and as a reader I probably felt some of the same emotions. The book centers around a subject – child pornography – that is a huge problem worldwide, and the author provides many passages that will bring the issue into sharp focus for those not acutely aware of the issue. Four stars.