Home Call by Bob Sloan

A Book Review
Reviewed by Allison February McKinley © 2004

Wild Child Publishing.com © 2004

Allison's review in ten words or fewer: Outstanding entertainment; more fun than an amusement park ride.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them...
-Hamlet, Act III, Scene I

Jesse Surratt has come home from the navy to hide, accomplishing that task with all the skill of the proverbial ostrich. He feigns the motions of running a farm, yet his daily chores have but one goal: to leave him sufficiently exhausted at day's end to slather himself in the anonymity of sleep. When that does not work, Jesse measures his options.

Sipping beer, he thought about making a real drink. ...he would drink until he was stupidly maudlin, physically and emotionally numb. Weighing his loneliness on an internal scale, he found it wasn't heavy enough to justify opening the whiskey... not yet.

Returning to his family's farm in Midland might have been a good idea. Jesse's intention was to keep to himself, only going into town when absolutely necessary to purchase supplies and sundries. When Jesse was a boy in high school, something happened to him that he cannot forget, and he feels the town of Midland has not forgotten either. He sees 'the shame' reflected in every face.

The sheriff and his brother, Bradley and Noah Smallwood, certainly will not allow the past to rest. What they did to exacerbate the incident should not have been allowed to go unpunished, yet to them the horrible crime committed against Jesse was just a joke. They tease Jesse whenever an opportunity arises. Bob Sloan paints them as greasy characters of dubious moral fibre, and we cannot wait to see them get their just deserts.

If that is not enough to goad him out of his lethargy, occasionally Jesse, when drunk, calls his ex-wife Margaret.

"I'm not saying you're a coward," she tells him. "It's just that all your life you've used that loner's pose and your size to keep people at arm's length."

Home Call presents a classic tale of good and evil: Arjuna poised upon the battlefield in the Bhagavad Gita, gripped by indecision; Hamlet, unable to 'take up arms against a sea of troubles'; the dilemma presented by the sins of commission or omission--when does inaction constitute acceptance? At what point does the one who ignores wrongdoing commence a conciliatory dance with the devil? More simply, in the lingo of the seventies' activists, You're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem.

Enter Alma Washington. One night, Jesse hears a scream from the ridge. He decides he must investigate:

The cry faded, then rose again, a quavering wail of terror and pain.

The pickup bucked into a clearing and Jesse could only stare, wishing the noise had been pranking high schoolers. Until that moment, buying the farm had seemed an effective retreat from the world, but something bad as any big city horror in the evening news had come to him. On Jesse's side of the barbed wire fence that marked his property line, a female body was tied to a tree. Dead leaves had been raked to within a few feet of the tree and set ablaze.

Thus begins the adventure, and Bob Sloan delivers one hell of a ride as Jesse and Alma take on what seems to be the entire corrupt establishment of the county.

Alma is a stellar character, a mere whippet of a girl. Her honest blue eyes eventually awaken the warrior spirit that resides deep inside Jesse's soul, but initially they arouse more than that.

Standing so near the woman, Jesse could smell fresh soap and shampoo. There was a hint of femaleness too, and he felt his reaction. It was a small response, a slight tightening at his middle, and the embarrassed flush which spread across his face was warm.

Her smile was hypnotic. Jesse reminded himself he had no business looking at a woman half his age, not the way he was watching Alma Washington.

Alma tells Jesse that she works for a detective agency in California, that she has been hired by a rich daddy to find out what his son is up to. And what Junior has been up to is taking over the entire marijuana-growing operation of Hawkes County.

I read this book with my heart in my throat, truly concerned for the safety of Jesse and Alma. They are not two-dimensional silver screen heroes, Uma Thurman and Bruce Willis in a Tarantinian world of stylized violence and combat dances, but believable ordinary people who are literally forced to take action against their evil persecutors.

When Bob Sloan writes action, he does so with great finesse, yet without losing his delicious poetic lyricism, as demonstrated by these three separate passages from the book:

Then Jesse Surratt fetched his shotgun and fed five shells into its magazine. He could taste his fear. It was a thin copper bite on his tongue, and he marvelled at how quickly routine could be shattered...

Fog draped the low ground, occupying the shallow valley behind the barn like a lost cloud, but the ridge rose above the gray, austere and sharp against the moon-lit sky. At the tree line, sparks rose from a low fire.

Without thinking, Jesse raised the Winchester and brought the barrel down on top of the man's head... Jesse ran around the vehicle and trained the rifle on the man... His flashlight illuminated a pale face, and Jesse felt a little sickened as a thin ribbon of blood dripped from the man's thick brown hair and oozed down his forehead.

Before I give too much of the plot away, allow me to close with a few observations.

Consider how people read these days. I would love nothing more than to pick up a novel, lounge back on a chaise in the spring sunshine and read a volume from cover to cover in one sitting whilst listening to the crocuses pop up.

Nevertheless, such an idyllic environment is seldom available. The exigencies of life are far more demanding. I must have read Home Call over fifteen different sittings, yet I was able to follow the plot very well. Bob Sloan's writing is vivid, his carefully-structured sentences and paragraphs brilliant with colour and vitality.

I have never been a fan of the extended denouement, and I was so happy to see that Bob Sloan's book carried me right through to the end on the edge of my seat.

To paraphrase a line from rapper Big Daddy Kane (Raw), "Bob Sloan is so full of action, his name should be a verb."

Home Call would make an excellent holiday gift for that special reader in your family. Suitable for ages 14 and over.