By LanaRus

 

Confucius said, “No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.” Reading is always a great pleasure for me, especially when I have a chance to discover new writers and find out what they have to offer.

One of those new writers that I had discovered through twitter is Andy Holloman, brother of Laurel Holloman, whose debut thriller, “Shades of Gray”, is scheduled to be released early in 2012.

 

Shades of Gray Review

©Andy Holloman

The premise of the novel is a journey of an ordinary man, John Manning, who is faced with extraordinary circumstances in his life, finding himself in the volatile world of drugs and danger in order to save his daughter’s life. In 2001, Lucy, John’s six-year-old daughter needs a kidney transplant and John has to secure a large amount of money for the surgery. His business, Durham, North Carolina based travel agency, had suffered from events of 9/11 and he teams up with one of his clients, Wanda, whose livelihood was also affected by the same events. She also needs money to escape the clutches of her dangerous boss so she could move to California with her daughter, Tonya.

 

Together, John and Wanda form an unlikely partnership to smuggle drugs via cruise ships, since John has an extensive knowledge of the industry. They both embark on a dangerous journey of distributing and selling drugs to get the money they need and the story deals with the questions, like how far should a father go to save his child? Can two people from completely different worlds help each other? And how dangerous their journey really is?

I had a privilege to read an advance copy of Andy Holloman’s novel and he delivers a well-written and very suspenseful and heartbreaking thriller that keeps you on the edge, using flashbacks as a means of characters introduction and bringing the readers to a twisting and shocking conclusion.