REVIEW: "You Can Go Home Now" by Michael Elias
When I was pregnant with my second son, I spent several months on modified bedrest.
I could have spent this time doing something productive — writing the next great American novel, reading through a backlog of classics, heck, even knitting some baby clothes.
But, I didn’t.
Instead, I watched every single episode of Law & Order: SVU. There were — at the time — 450 episodes. At 45 minutes each (without commercials) that’s 20,250 minutes, which is 337.5 hours, which is 14 full 24-hour days!
So, basically, I know everything there is to know about being a cop.
Or at least about playing one on TV.
The steely looks.
The subtle intimidation tactics.
The gratuitous one-liners.
The thing is, though, while I am — apparently — totally content to watch a fucking fortnight of cop-centric TV, I have never been one for police procedural reads.
So, imagine my surprise when I found myself falling in love with this novel, the protagonist of which is a police woman — who is, for the record, way tougher than Olivia Benson.
If cop-centric TV and novels are to be believed, everyone who becomes a cop has some serious baggage. And Nina Karim is no exception.
Long before becoming a homicide detective in Queens, Nina lived in upstate New York. Her youth was relatively idyllic. Until the day when, while sitting at the dinner table with her brother, Sammy, she witnessed her father take a sniper’s bullet to the brain.
It wasn’t just her father that died on that day, it was also the comforting sense of normalcy that had typified her childhood.
Now bent on ensuring that justice is served for everyone — and, most specifically, for the “cowardly bastard” who shot her father, a man for whom she still searches — Nina immerses herself fully in her work. So logically when, while going through cold case files and discovering what may very well be a murderous trend, she digs deeper.
With her instincts finely tuned, Nina notices what no one else noticed: a pattern in the seemingly patternless pile. With some minor digging, she finds that a number of the murder victims in these long-gone-cold cases had a history of inflicting abuse on their romantic partners. And their battered significant others all sought shelter at a well-hidden, closely guarded sanctuary called Artemis.
Could it be, Nina wonders, that someone in Artemis is just as set on vengeance as she is?
There is only one way to know, she decides.
She has to go in.
Almost as completely as Nina immersed herself in the mysterious — and intercessory — world of Artemis, I immersed myself in this novel.
I would say that this book was a deep well into which I tumbled and became trapped, but the negative connotation makes that not the most apt description. Because, unlike a dark and dank well from which I can only assume I would want to make a hasty escape, I didn’t want to get out. I wanted to stay, immersed in the gritty, rough, real world of this book.
I wanted to buddy up to Nina and help her find the cowardly bastard who had so completely derailed her life.
Even though I’m not someone who is normally bent on revenge, I would have delighted in riding shotgun on her journey, because I felt her quest was so important.
So warranted.
So necessary.
Becoming invested in this book wasn’t hard, because Nina — despite all of her brashness and rule-bending — was so easy to love.
It was enigmatic, really. The odd mixture of total confidence and complete uncertainty. On the outside, Nina looked like a tough-as-nails — albeit physically diminutive — female cop who you would be ill-advised to cross. But, on the inside, Nina was still the little girl who had seen her father transform from a healthy man washing dishes to a bloodied corpse crumpled on the kitchen floor.
Damaged characters are always more engaging, but I found Nina to be even more captivating than usual. This is probably due to the fact that Nina’s baggage was significant and life-altering.
Unlike some purportedly “troubled” protagonists, she wasn’t still harboring upset regarding a marriage that ended in divorce or struggling with self-worth issues because she couldn’t lose that last 10 pounds.
No, Nina had been through some serious shit.
And because I knew that what she had been through would realistically leave a lasting mark on even the strongest of person, I didn’t tire of Nina remaining mired in this past trauma.
Another thing that enhanced her likability was the fact that, while she couldn’t let go of the events of her past, she was actively working to do something about it — namely, end the life of the man who had stolen her father from her and, in doing so, had tossed a proverbial hand grenade into her life.
Another factor that influenced my absolute absorption into this book was the quality of the writing.
It was so clean and crisp and sparkly.
With his tidy narration and precisely portioned description, Michael Elias absolutely captures his readers.
And this was not necessarily something that I was expecting.
Very often, I find writing in thrillers to be a bit spartan. It’s utilitarian and purposeful and effective, but it hardly jumps off the page. That was absolutely not the case here.
The prose bordered on lyrical, mesmerizing this reader — and, presumably, all readers — and more effectively pulling me into the world of the novel.
My one regret is that Elias doesn’t have a larger back catalog of reads to devour, because You Can Go Home Now certainly earned him a spot on my list of authors to watch.
Nearly without fault, this novel earns a glowing 5 out of 5 cocktails.
How into revenge are you? Normally, I find it kind of cliche when protagonists are all about the revenge — probably because, in my real life, I just tend to let stuff go. But, in this case, it worked for me. Are you a naturally vengeful person? Tell me about it in the comments below (so I can make sure not to cross you😉)
Moving right along to my next read. Want to see what it is? Subscribe to updates in the sidebar on the right and follow me on Goodreads.
* Drink. Read. Repeat. is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an associate, we may earn commissions, at no cost to you, from qualifying purchases on Amazon.com
