"Or Else" by Joe Hart

Alan Drake is a writer of thrillers. He’s returned from New York City to his hometown in upstate New York to care for his father, who’s been diagnosed as being in the early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease. Drake moves into a house across the street from his father. His mother died some years before; his divorced younger sister Kelly lives in a nearby community with her two young daughters. 

The town is filled with memories good and bad. His youngest sister Emma committed suicide here. His primary memory of the local Catholic church his family attended is being locked in the cavernous basement by his older brother, for which his mother blamed him. The neighbrohood has something else – his childhood friend Rachel Barren and her verbally abusive husband David, with their two young boys. He and Rachel fall into an easy friendship, and then fall into an affair. That is, until; Alan finds an anonymous note, telling him to stay away from Rachel. 

Joe Hart

One night, Alan hears a bang at two in the morning. Across the street, his father hears it, too. The bang turns out to be a gunshot; David is found dead, and Rachel and the two boys are missing. The police investigation goes nowhere. Alan is determined to find Rachel and her children, or at least find out what’s happened. He knows that if the police find out about the affair, he’d be Suspect No. 1.

 

And that takes the writer on his own journey of chases in the dark, financial skullduggery, the death of a beloved family friend, and an almost-successful attempt to kill him and his father. 

Or Else by Joe Hart is the story of Alan and his investigation. It’s an excellent fast-paced, layered story of love, family drama, the past haunting the present, and murder.

 

Hart is the author of 14 other novels, several novellas, and two short story collections. He lives in Minnesota.