Anytime
you hear the news that Angel Luis Colon is publishing something, be it a short
story or a novella, if you are a lover of noir or dark fiction, you are running
to get a copy of the novella or the anthology the short story will be published
in. You do this because everyone knows if Colon writes it, it will kick ass.
Colon
has been on a roll recently, publishing a few short stories and putting out a
new novella, No Happy Endings. I have read all the short stories, loving each
one and as good as they were, I am here to tell you he saved his best for this
novella.
I
found this to be a bit different than the offerings I have previously enjoyed
from Colon. This was less dark than his normal writings, instead it’s a caper
story with a heroine, Fantine Park, looking to pull off a robbery she's
blackmailed into. Colon dishes out a few twists and turns and we soon find Park
being forced to serve a new master, as the Sword of Damocles hangs over her
head throughout this fast paced book. While she comes from a family of thieves,
she finds her lock picking skills aren’t the best set of skills to keep her and
her father alive when she is forced to align with a true madman.
It
is oversimplifying the plot to define it only as a caper; there is sly humor
mixed in and the how the title relates to the story is sly humor at its best.
Anyone who can construct a true villain with the nickname “The Milkman” and
have the nickname be so appropriate is a writer I am going to be looking out to
read for a long time in the future. Colon has a great knack for creating fast
paced, well-written stories and his novellas are following suit. I am eagerly
looking forward to more from him and you should grab this one as soon as
possible. Just don’t start it without dedicating a few hours, you won’t want to
put it down for anything.
Highly
Recommended.
Reviewed by Derrick Horodyski.
