Travis Thrasher's "Broken"

What a ripping good story this is.

Laila Torres works at a bank in Greenville, South Carolina. A co-worker, Kyle, is interested in her. She is clearly a beautiful woman. She keeps discouraging Kyle. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know her past. But her past is about to catch up with Laila, Kyle and just about anyone else associated with her.

And it’s a past that only gradually unfolds, adding layer upon layer to Laila’s story, a story that begins with one fact: she shot and killed a man.

Or did she?

The twelfth novel of author Travis Thrasher, Broken is a wonderfully crafted story of a woman haunted by her past, chased by the brother of the man she believes she killed, and pursued by her own conscience. The story moves from Chicago to New York to Greenville and finally to post-Katrina New Orleans, the perfect “broken” setting for a broken woman running from a broken life. Thrasher sustains the growing tension of the story by allowing Laila herself to finally face what she’s truly been running from, what she cannot forgive herself for but only can be supernaturally forgiven.

“Broken” is a great story. Thrasher has written a series of suspenseful, sometimes terrifying but always satisfying and even provocative stories, and this one is one of his best.