Hamilton cleverly imbues the narrative with myriad of twists and turns, allowing the intricate plot to unfold with stunning and extraordinary skill and suspense ... As Hamilton invites us to investigate the hard truths of criminal behavior, he artfully weaves a gripping tale of escalating violence and psychological warfare that is at times both chillingly haunting and relentlessly hopeful. Hamilton's deceptively simple prose is fraught with internal emotional turmoil and intense physical confrontations, as he refreshingly refuses to shy away from the very current issues of police corruption and brutality that plague our systems of law enforcement.
Mr. Hamilton gives this book a superb set of road maps, one for the Chicago Nick knows so well, another for the inner workings of Nick’s mind. Because Nick is a first-time character faced with a terrible moral dilemma, his thoughts need to be grippingly complex, and they are ... Though he flirts with some obvious clichés here, Mr. Hamilton uses them to his advantage. After all, chases and club scenes and daughter-loving dads wouldn’t be so popular if they didn’t work. And The Second Life of Nick Mason kicks off this new phase of Mr. Hamilton’s career at full gallop. It’s a tight, gripping book about a man hellbent on reinventing himself against long odds. By a writer who knows whereof he speaks.
As fertile as Chicago is for crime fiction, it isn't often that an outsider captures the underside of the local scene as memorably as Steve Hamilton does with The Second Life of Nick Mason, the terrific first installment in a projected series ... Loudly promoted on social media, the novel more than lives up to its hype. In so doing, it introduces a promising second life for Hamilton as well.
The novel is so good it legitimately stands shoulder to padded, paranoid shoulder with the classics of the crime noir genre ... There are so many terrific elements in this novel, Nick's haunted character, a plot that never darts in the direction you expect it to and a truly ingenious climax that I could be here until Labor Day singing its praises.
The plotting is crisp, and the story moves smoothly, slipping easily between timelines — from Nick walking out of prison, to the crime that landed him in prison, to prison walks with Darius Cole, to Nick’s ex-wife and his daughter, to the good cop chasing Nick, and the dirty cops chasing Nick. Nick is a very mobile character juggling different sides of his identity. One day, he’s slitting the throat of a man in a public restroom, and another he’s shopping for a puppy. That Hamilton is able to imbue both of these scenes with sharp tension is a testament to his skills as a writer. And as expected from a writer with Hamilton’s award-winning, best-selling track record, all the novel’s threads tie up in a powerful, violent resolution.
While Nick’s nobility could be argued, what’s undeniable is that Mr. Hamilton has delivered a well-constructed story with a complicated plot, a lot of action, some vivid language and a variety of nicely detailed scenes ... The book’s dust jacket features praise from crime writing heavyweights such as Harry Bosch creator Michael Connelly, and scenically, Mr. Hamilton captures Chicago as well as Mr. Connelly depicts Los Angeles. But Nick doesn’t have the unique individualism of a character such as Bosch. What Nick lacks in intellect, however, he makes up for in testosterone.
