AFRAID, written by “Jack Kilborn,” Created a Troubling Concern

Have you ever read a book that would not go away? Two weeks after having absorbed the last sentence in the last chapter, and moved on to other authors, other stories, that one book keeps echoing in your brain?

The Old Cobbler is talking about a book written by J. A. Konrath, an author about whom I have no qualms using wordsmith to describe his writing talent. Beyond that, he represents the two essential qualities that it takes to succeed at writing novels in today’s world.

The man understands persistence. His 500 plus rejections prove that. The man understands promotion. The miles he has driven on book tours, the bookstores he has visited, and the work he has done via the Internet, all speak for themselves.

I found his mixology series, as I have come to call them, featuring Lt. Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels of the Chicago Police Department, to be very enjoyable reads. These books, to use an old line, are the complete package.

It was the enjoyment of these six books that led me to buy AFRAID, which Konrath wrote under the name Jack Kilborn. Nothing was known about the story in AFRAID when the book was bought.

Knowing who wrote the book, a quick peek at the back cover, seeing the comment, “An absolute must read for anyone who loves the adrenaline rush of a shocking story with style, speed, and savage grace,” was enough for me.

I did not get the promised adrenaline rush from reading the book. The concept of soldiers whose skills are enhanced via biochemical engineering and technology to the point they become perfect, cold robotic killers is not new.

What I did get from the book is a though that is for me very disturbing. It’s a personal thing, and needs maybe a bit of explanation. When I left the news reporting business, it was for economic reasons. I had a family to support.

But leaving the business also gave me a sense of relief in that I was walking away from a life that at times put me face-to-face with acts of violence. And as I came to learn during those years, there are two types of violence.

There is the violence of the tragic accident. In the days before seat belts, a young mother parked her car on a hillside and opened the driver’s door. The trim on the cuff of her winter coat sleeve became entangled in the door handle. The weight of the door swinging open pulled her backward from the vehicle seat. The base of her skull hit a concrete curb. She was fatally injured.

There is the violence is that inflicted by one human on another, or on an animal. A high school boy poured gas on a cat and set it on fire. The reason given afterwards for this act was as unjustifiable as the act was savage and brutal. The boy said he simply wanted to know how fast and far a burning cat could run.

Reading AFRAID was the first book in nearly half a century that brought back a memory of that unjustifiable act of violence and brutality. I did not find the book to be an adrenaline rush. I found it to be totally repulsive.

I read the entire book, hoping that by the end, there would be a reason that gave some acceptable level of justification for the violence and brutality. For me, it was not there. It was the burning cat, redux.

I cannot criticize Konrath for writing this book. The man has made the commitment to writing novels that a publisher will buy. I cannot criticize the imprints that published the book. They print what they believe the public will buy.

That leaves the people that bought the book, including The Old Cobbler. I want very much to believe that others bought the book based the same type of criteria, the same level of ignorance that I did. The alternative to this is what leaves me with such a disturbing concern.

That is the idea that there is a sufficient number of folks in this country that buy, read and enjoy the type of baseless, unjustifiable violence depicted in AFRAID to make this type of novel a viable part of the book publishing industry.

If AFRAID proves to be an acceptable seller, as does a second book in this "genre" planned by Konrath, in which he promises more “chilling horror,” the books will make a far more chilling statement about our society than they do about the author or the imprint that publishes them.