THE FEVER KILL by Tom Piccirilli

He wanted to kill somebody, but everyone who mattered was already dead.

I'm sure everyone is tired of me gushing on and on about how great Tom Piccirilli is. But I've yet to read a bad book from him and the guy's writing really illustrates the complexity of his characters in such an impressively efficient way. The Fever Kill is no different. Here we focus on a narc cop so deep undercover he doesn't know what side he's on anymore, returning to his hometown to confront his family's past.

I love the complicated gray area of morality that the book and it's protagonist Crease lives in, as well as the High Noon-style of the inevitable confrontation between Crease and the violent drug dealer he's involved with. The book was one of the first straight crime novels that Piccirilli wrote, and even though it's a gritty noir that takes place in modern-day Vermont, with it's structure and themes it could've been written as a classic Western. It's an intense tale about a man trying to figure out where he lands on the morality scale.

"Go on and get yourself shot. Do it close to the gutter so no one else has to clean up after you."

GRADE: A-