For the Dogs Kevin Wignall Simon Schuster July 6, 2004 I SBN: 0743247566 224 pages/$22.00

Two people, two stories, two vastly different endings.

When a hitman enters the Hatto household and ruthlessly kills everyone within, it begins a ripple effect that will be felt half way across the world.

Ella Hatto relaxes in Montecatini, Italy with her boyfriend Chris when she chances a glance at a stranger sitting at a table across the street. She’s certain she’s seen him before. But why would a strange man be following them through Italy? She looks away for a second and when she look back, the man looks down the street, gets out of his chair and reaches into his shirt for something. A gun. As he makes his way across the street towards her, Ella jumps up and grabs Chris. Shots are fired. But not from the strange man at Ella. He is firing at two men down the street. Both men now lay on the ground. When he reaches Ella he says simply, “Come with me,” and Ella’s life changes forever. And so does the life of the man sent to protect her.

Lucas has come out of retirement in order to get Ella safely out of Italy and into the confines of the British consulate in Switzerland. He expects to do his job and sink back into the mundane oblivion life has been for him. Spending most of his time with books, Lucas is not comfortable handling the shattered girl and the sullen boyfriend. When he gives them safe haven in his own house before taking them to Switzerland, his contact with Ella reminds him of a past he’d tried hard to forget. A past that included a daughter he’d never met. He sets his mind on finding her after discharging his duty to the girl that inspired this rush of nostalgia.

Ella’s life after Lucas is a downward spiral of sadness and rage. With everyone admonishing her to get over it and get on with her life, Ella feels isolated, misunderstood and sick with grief. She comes to believe there can be only one cure. Revenge.

And, there is only one man that can help her. Lucas agrees to this last job, hoping that the death of the man that killed her family will bring her peace. But it unleashes events that can’t be stopped. Events that lead one of them to redemption and the other to death.

With For the Dogs (in addition to 2001’s People Die and Among the Dead in 2002,) Wignall is establishing a voice as a modern noir writer with roots deeply immersed in the classics. His allusions to the Nibelungenlied (translated by A.T. Hatto) confirm the depths behind the plot. This in no way translates to a dry epic with a sluggish pace. It is an in depth exploration of death and isolation propelled by the twin conduit of revenge and redemption.

The label ‘thriller’ is heaped on his novels and justifiably so. There is plenty of action and his characters operate under constant threat. Wignall’s writing is sharp, fluid and rich with a pace that can very easily keep hapless readers glued to the pages until the final resolution.

Jennifer Jordan