Sin Walks Into The Desert

Sin, of course, is the name of the protagonist. He is neither a hero nor anti-hero; he is more enigmatic than either. Sin, misunderstood and abandoned by his father, is tormented by local bullies and has no real relationship with anyone but an older sister who flees for parts unknown, leaving Sin to face his living nightmare alone. He is rescued by a former special ops uncle who presumably teaches him how to live in a world where most people are predators of one sort or another. It is not a pleasant picture of the world. Thankfully the author does not detail the much of the Sin’s training, leaving it to be discovered how good or bad it is. Sin moves through the book as a predator, seeking the uncle, who has since retired. He reconnects with a former partner of his uncle and starts following the trail of leads.

The nonlinear structure of the book assembles Sin’s story like a jigsaw puzzle, flashing between the present and the past watershed moments in his life to build the picture of why he is like he is. The book reads very quickly. The overuse of unnecessary expletives was a bit disappointing; their shock value was unneeded as the otherwise sparse writing and twisting and dramatic plot drive the story forward. The secondary characters are drawn well, with not too much detail but enough to picture them easily.

The greatest strength of the book is that it is impossible to pigeon-hole the main character. He is not a cookie-cutter assassin or super human, nor does he really have feet of clay. Readers are not sure if he can do what needs to be done or if he will fall prey to the same problems that beset him as an adolescent. He seems to be someone who is finding his way without a lot of good models to follow. There is a ray of hope at the end, almost like Sin is finally coming of age, but maintaining the mystery of whether Sin will go totally dark or find some happiness in his life, hopefully setting the book up for future sequels.