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"The Hard Place"
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“Ride Cowboy Ride”
After getting mixed up with a dangerous loan shark, Danny Petrelski gets caught in a position where he is forced to choose between a rock and a hard place. He chose the latter. In “The Hard Place”, Danny discovers a passion for working as a freelancer who accepts gigs under his DBA Personal and Professional Services. The stakes are high as a glorified hitman, but the money is good, however Danny starts questioning the cost of doing business when he starts losing the people that are closest to him.
After getting mixed up with a dangerous loan shark, Danny Petrelski gets caught in a position where he is forced to choose between a rock and a hard place. He chose the latter. In “The Hard Place”, Danny discovers a passion for working as a freelancer who accepts gigs under his DBA Personal and Professional Services. The stakes are high as a glorified hitman, but the money is good, however Danny starts questioning the cost of doing business when he starts losing the people that are closest to him.
Readability
The novella is very presentable with a neatly structured format. The story runs eight chapters long with an introduction and it even includes a table of contents. The narrative is well paced for a thriller, offering some action in just about each chapter. Any errors in the writing are marginal and have absolutely no impact on the story. The storyline is loose and the plot features some rounded support characters.
Creativity
In “The Hard Place”, Domino’s writing is fairly straightforward without any flowery prose. The story reads as if someone was telling you Danny’s story from a dirty bar somewhere in a shady part of town. He does not mince words and the dialogue is pretty realistic, but more realistic than it is pretty. Sometimes it’s funny too:
“Oh Angela;” he shouted. “I love you, take me back, please.”
On more than one occasion throughout the story there were characters introduced that I considered unnecessary towards developing the story, however Danny’s character moves around a lot throughout the story and Domino used these otherwise unnecessary characters as a means of breathing life into each setting (hence why I think he gave them all names). Diners, restaurants, pawnshops, bars, strip clubs, train stations, urban, suburban, and rural areas, create a dynamic environment that shows the reader just how much Danny’s character gets around as a “freelancer”.
Delivery
The storyline in this novella is loose and the plot lacks in any substantial tension. I enjoyed all the action early in the story and “Drago’s Demise”. The planning and plotting on Danny’s behalf made me feel as though I was an accomplice or a witness. I appreciated the realism of the story (even though the sex scenes were cringe) however this is effectively a tale about a man dealing with a midlife crisis in a literal and symbolic sense. I think this story is less about a freelance hitman and more about a free agent looking for a team to represent. The reason why I say this is because Danny’s character is very much codependent upon the few personal relationships he maintains in the story. His ex-wife, his son, a prostitute, and his stripper girlfriend are significant to his identity, since his line of work requires him (for all intents and purposes) to remain an anonymous nobody who dwells on the past. The turning point in this story is when those characters move on with their lives, independent of Danny’s character, and Danny feels as though he has been left for dead. After that, the narrative dwindles into a weak attempt at a symbolic twist ending, just when you think Danny is about to successfully retire from his life of crime and get a fresh start in Costa Rica.
The novella is very presentable with a neatly structured format. The story runs eight chapters long with an introduction and it even includes a table of contents. The narrative is well paced for a thriller, offering some action in just about each chapter. Any errors in the writing are marginal and have absolutely no impact on the story. The storyline is loose and the plot features some rounded support characters.
Creativity
In “The Hard Place”, Domino’s writing is fairly straightforward without any flowery prose. The story reads as if someone was telling you Danny’s story from a dirty bar somewhere in a shady part of town. He does not mince words and the dialogue is pretty realistic, but more realistic than it is pretty. Sometimes it’s funny too:
“Oh Angela;” he shouted. “I love you, take me back, please.”
On more than one occasion throughout the story there were characters introduced that I considered unnecessary towards developing the story, however Danny’s character moves around a lot throughout the story and Domino used these otherwise unnecessary characters as a means of breathing life into each setting (hence why I think he gave them all names). Diners, restaurants, pawnshops, bars, strip clubs, train stations, urban, suburban, and rural areas, create a dynamic environment that shows the reader just how much Danny’s character gets around as a “freelancer”.
Delivery
The storyline in this novella is loose and the plot lacks in any substantial tension. I enjoyed all the action early in the story and “Drago’s Demise”. The planning and plotting on Danny’s behalf made me feel as though I was an accomplice or a witness. I appreciated the realism of the story (even though the sex scenes were cringe) however this is effectively a tale about a man dealing with a midlife crisis in a literal and symbolic sense. I think this story is less about a freelance hitman and more about a free agent looking for a team to represent. The reason why I say this is because Danny’s character is very much codependent upon the few personal relationships he maintains in the story. His ex-wife, his son, a prostitute, and his stripper girlfriend are significant to his identity, since his line of work requires him (for all intents and purposes) to remain an anonymous nobody who dwells on the past. The turning point in this story is when those characters move on with their lives, independent of Danny’s character, and Danny feels as though he has been left for dead. After that, the narrative dwindles into a weak attempt at a symbolic twist ending, just when you think Danny is about to successfully retire from his life of crime and get a fresh start in Costa Rica.
#LFLR Indie Rating: 7/10
I haven’t read a lot of crime thrillers so I don’t have much basis for comparison, but I think “The Hard Place” is a pretty solid read for the genre. I mean, I was never sweating the outcome at any point in the story, but this novella certainly had me flipping the pages to see how things were going to pan out. There were some small and satisfying surprises with some of the side characters which created a contrast between Danny’s character, but the ending fell flat (inside joke). The story is marketed as a crime thriller, but at the risk of arguing semantics I think this story is more of a crime drama that contains some thrilling scenes. As a crime drama I think the story is superb (minus the ending), but if you are an avid reader of the crime genre then you should give this one a shot and make up your own mind on that. J. Salvatore Domino has five other distinct works including four contributions to the “The Algorithm Man” collection, which is a whodunit series that follows a code cracking case closing cyber sleuth.
I haven’t read a lot of crime thrillers so I don’t have much basis for comparison, but I think “The Hard Place” is a pretty solid read for the genre. I mean, I was never sweating the outcome at any point in the story, but this novella certainly had me flipping the pages to see how things were going to pan out. There were some small and satisfying surprises with some of the side characters which created a contrast between Danny’s character, but the ending fell flat (inside joke). The story is marketed as a crime thriller, but at the risk of arguing semantics I think this story is more of a crime drama that contains some thrilling scenes. As a crime drama I think the story is superb (minus the ending), but if you are an avid reader of the crime genre then you should give this one a shot and make up your own mind on that. J. Salvatore Domino has five other distinct works including four contributions to the “The Algorithm Man” collection, which is a whodunit series that follows a code cracking case closing cyber sleuth.
THIS BREAKDOWN IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE #LFLR NETWORK.
