In QUIVER, Peter Leonard — son of Elmore — makes an auspicious but not awesome debut. His crime novel casts a female in the lead: Kate, a former tennis pro who’s become a widow when her husband Owen is killed via crossbow in a hunting accident — and worse, one caused by their young son Luke.
Before Owen is offed, Leonard flashes back to their “meet cute” courtship. She quickly falls in love with the NASCAR driver, they marry, they reproduce, all in quick succession. All is well and happy in their lives until the fated day that Owen wants to teach Luke how to bag a buck.
Naturally, after the accident, Luke grows sullen and withdrawn, wracked with guilt. Nothing Kate does can help the lad, but she gets the chance for offspring redemption when the boy is suddenly kidnapped and held for ransom by money-hungry misfit criminals. They include DeJuan, a guy who thinks nothing of knocking over a 7-Eleven or being a hired hitman; Teddy, a former racing rival of Owen’s; and Celeste, his white-trash girlfriend who’ll remind you of Jamie Pressly in MY NAME IS EARL. And all of this coincides with the rearrival in Kate’s life of Jack, a former flame, newly sprung from the clink after “finding Jesus.”
Leonard is smart in taking his time to introduce the villains — and only then one at a time — to allow his own storytelling style to take shape, and therefore, distance himself from dear ol’ Dad. It’s not until those bad guys come into play — with comic elements, juxtaposed against the tragedy of Kate’s world — where one can see the parental influence rubbing off.
For a good half of its just-under 300 pages, QUIVER hits its target, delivering a wholly sympathetic heroine on one side and a gaggle of goofy no-goodniks on the others. It’s when these two sides are forced to coexist on an equal plane that the differing ingredients fail to mesh into something delicious — palatable, by all means, but nothing to save for leftovers for lunch the next day.
The only other true misstep Leonard takes is in the first couple of chapters when he reveals an episode from Kate’s post-collegiate life, saving herself from certain death by a group of rapists during her time in the Peace Corps. Since it doesn’t relate directly to anything else at the moment, it may as well be labeled “FORESHADOWING!” because Leonard immediately shows you Kate can kick ass, thereby making her confrontation with the kidnappers a little less thrilling than it could have been. —Rod Lott
