Title: Betrayed
Author: Ross Gallen
Publisher: Kravitz & Sons
ISBN: 979-8-89639-553-9
Pages: 190
Genre: Fiction / Thriller / Mystery
Reviewer: Joe Kilgore
Hollywood Book Reviews
Categorization is loved by analytical types, yet the bane of storytellers is more intent on creating an interesting read than an easily labeled slot filler. Author Ross Gallen’s latest tome does not fit snuggly into a typical thriller, mystery, or adventure classification. However, that’s what makes it more interesting than archetypal offerings.
Betrayed begins with a narration from protagonist Jake Mandel. He’s a well-heeled attorney in the more than well-heeled enclave of Newport Beach, California. It’s the kind of coastal community that attracts wealthy politicians and non-politicos often even more conservative than they are affluent. Jake plays the game like those around him, but truth be told, it’s starting to wear thin. Jake seems to be suffering from what was once called a mid-life crisis. He’s professionally successful, but he now views his career as more of a sop to cleaver obfuscation than an intransigent adherence to the rule of law. He’s married, but unhappily, and long ago traded wedded bliss for a marital demilitarized zone that keeps him and his wife in the same abode but different emotional zip codes. Dedicated drinking and frequent affairs fill most of his time, but at the back of his mind the question keeps arising, is there more to life than money, stature, and sex? He sort of hopes there isn’t, but he’s got a gnawing feeling that there just might be.
Even in this golden state paradise, evil and tragedy sometimes intrude, both homegrown and international. The young scion of a politically connected family is arrested and accused of murder. The kid’s dad is a client of Jake’s firm. As if that weren’t enough, and believe me, it isn’t, the narrator’s close friend, a judge, is said to commit suicide. Jake doesn’t believe his pal would take his own life, and he begins a clandestine search to learn more. As he’s looking for answers, irate Iranians are looking for him, thinking he just might have information that they definitely don’t want revealed. Before you know it, Jake’s office building becomes ground zero for an explosion that leads to devastation and loss of multiple lives.
In addition to a swiftly escalating plot, author Gallen creates penetrating profiles of a number of major and minor participants. He provides intriguing insights into officers of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, as well as an internet radicalized terrorist and his parents. Readers are made privy to the physical histories and philosophical emotions of a potpourri of players. Such as a beautiful Mossad undercover agent, a Columbian cleaning lady, an Iman with evil intentions, and a lawyer whose use-by date is rapidly approaching. There’s even a courtroom drama that debates the difference between monstrous atrocities and fundamental societal and religious belief as a means of social reconstruction. This is a novel that explores historical influences with the same intensity it applies to heinous behavior.
Through it all though, Gallen spins out prose that is curt, confident, and conversational. He keeps the pace brisk and the revelations surprising. Betrayal is one of those novels that is as much about who’s fooling who as it is about who did what to whom? If you like your reading rapid, realistic, and thought provoking as well as pulse pounding, this one’s for you.
Ross Gallen’s Betrayed is an electrifying thriller where nothing is as it seems and no one can be trusted. Fans of fast-paced suspense and psychological intrigue will find themselves captivated from beginning to end.