Intrigue is present throughout, with the writer’s imagination and rich world-building keeping readers invested until the end.
Beneath the grime and glamour of Seattle city life, where any sense of morality is as rare as a comet, lies a waking nightmare that needs to be stopped in Miguel Hernandez Jr’s novel, Spider’s Bait. The vicious Webheads gang has overthrown the Killer Owls gang in a bloody showdown taking over their power. Alister Knight, a sharp-witted but troubled private investigator working in the Knight Chasers’ Agency, steps in for his brother Griffin, who is away on another case in Miami, to solve the murder of Valentina Romero, a former police sergeant. Valentina had died in a suspicious car accident with evidence pointing to a well-known criminal queen pin. The investigation plunges him into the dark labyrinth of the Webheads’ underworld, where drugs, treachery, corrupt players, and gun fights are the order of the day. At the epicenter of the chaos and web of deceit is the high-powered criminal mastermind, Sapphire Rushland, who lurks in the shadows, pulling strings to her advantage, and whom Alister has to take on to bring down the ruthless gang. Ultimately, he uncovers more than he bargained for as he is also forced to confront his inner demons.
Escapist entertainment hallmarks Miguel Hernandez Jr’s work, Spider’s Bait. There is severity, humanity, dilemma, and tragedy in this tightly-plotted narrative as it hits all the convincing chords of a crime fiction novel. Here, danger lurks at every corner with the author exploring the often unseen depths of human depravity. The characters are well-hewn, often seen in the book’s alternating perspectives, with their impulses, temperaments, and struggles vividly drawn out. Alister Knight is a protagonist who emerges as a strong character determined to finish his investigation and overcome his weaknesses, and whose joys and tribulations readers will share. The text does not dally in its beginning but immerses readers right away into a gripping action scene that hooks them in right away. The scenes across the pages are marked by palpable tension, heightened suspense, sharp imagery, and believable exposition that lends an immediacy that fits in its genre. Intrigue is present throughout, with the writer’s imagination and rich world-building keeping readers invested until the end. Spider’s Bait is the type of work that true crime enthusiasts will love.
