Green Sun is a stunning book, and it's more than worth the wait ... Green Sun succeeds on so many levels, it's hard to keep count. As a crime novel, it's paced beautifully; Anderson lets the suspense build naturally, never resorting to cheap narrative tricks at the expense of the plot. His characters are realistic — there are no flawless heroes or evil villains; Anderson has no use for lazy archetypes of any kind. He also displays a canny understanding of psychology ... Hanson is a fascinating and memorable character, but the real star of Green Sun is Anderson's writing. He never succumbs to hard-boiled clichés or tough-guy posturing; he's a compassionate writer who never wastes a single word.
Anderson’s writing is reminiscent of that of James Lee Burke, blending pathos, violence, and corruption with long-shot hope and glimpses of natural wonder ... Green Sun builds to a fraught but satisfying finale, one that likely marks the final literary chapter for Hanson ... Green Sun avoids over-the-top action but maintains narrative tension. Indeed, Anderson’s lean but limber style makes this novel a suitable companion for just about anyone.
Green Sun is eminently readable. Anderson has a clear, direct style for the most part, but writes with a poetic flourish when appropriate. Hanson’s recollections, or perhaps dreams or flashbacks, of his time in Vietnam have an otherworldly, and often quite beautiful, feel to them ... Both Night Dogs and Green Sun might make you question why anyone would choose such a dangerous profession, but the author draws a distinction between the department itself and the individuals working in it. Green Sun is a brilliant novel in its own right, and a worthy follow up to Night Dogs. Read them both.
Anderson doesn’t publish much, but when he does, it’s something to remember ... a wrenching finale that functions almost cathartically for both Hanson and the reader, a release from the emotional tension that has been building throughout the story. It is perhaps the perfect time for an honest, realistic, unflinching portrayal of a good cop, and Anderson delivers just that.
Kent Anderson is one of the unsung legends of crime fiction, largely because he spreads his work so thin. His quietly staggering new novel, which brings back his alter ego Hanson, completes an autobiographical trilogy he began three decades ago.
We’ve seen it before, but Kent Anderson puts his own twist on things and manages to keep it fresh. The story moves at a slower pace, which is by design, and is character-driven. Those who like smart, slow-burn thrillers that require a bit of thought and depth will eat this one up...while those who like action and fast-moving plots may struggle with the pacing and Anderson’s style of storytelling. Dark, gritty, and rife with conflict, Kent Anderson’s latest is a powerful, deeply moving novel that asks some difficult questions...give it time to develop, because once it does, Green Sun really delivers.
Nearly half of Hanson’s violent, poetically rendered rookie year in Oakland has passed before some, though by no means all, of these plotlines begin to converge, and when they do, it’s like watching a finely crafted short story emerge from a novel-length chrysalis. Read Anderson for great scenes and an appealingly contrary hero, and the absence of the traditional kinds of genre coherence, not to mention suspense, won’t bother you a bit.
In a series of vivid and often hallucinatory episodes, Anderson shows Hanson, aided by an 11-year-old neighborhood boy named Weegee, navigating the mean streets of Oakland, dealing with situations forcefully but always with humanity. Anderson’s model of community policing couldn’t be more timely.
