Into the Fire

Home Fire by Dustin Stevens is Book 5 (and possibly the final one) in the A Hawk Tate Novel series. 

Hawk has spent the last six years of his life mourning the gruesome loss of his wife and daughter along with the memory of the cruel and painful verbal assault by his sister-in-law, taking it all on as the truth. So when he receives an urgent call while guiding a miserable family through Yellowstone, the voice he hears on the other end of the phone leaves him near speechless.

Quickly realizing the situation must be dire for his sister-in-law to call him, he does his best to get to Tennessee ASAP. Not having time to properly register his gun(s) for the flight, he packs a quick bag, arranges a guide for the unhappy family while letting his assistant know he has to respond to this emergency.

When he arrives, the situation is in fact dire. Amber and Josh (his sister and brother-in-law) are staying with their son (Eric) in the hospital after he was shot while with his sister (Elyse) after attending a movie. Sixteen year old Elyse and their car are missing and the Lieutenant Detective on the case is anything but reassuring. 

Hawk has next to nothing to work with for clues, but he calls his friend and former associate (Pally) who is a wizard at getting information. What little he learns to begin with eventually expands, none of it looking good for his niece. 

Getting weaponry the hard way, at least Hawk is armed for what he must do. And it won't be pretty. Knowing how unprepared he is without anyone he knows in close proximity to be of assistance, he relies on the seemingly slow accumulation of information Pally is able to provide off the small prompts Hawk finds, the seconds counting down on the rescue of his niece. Having left Montana in a rush hoping to somehow be of help to the family he lost when his wife and daughter were murdered, he'll risk it all to get back his niece.  

Hawk's struggle isn't in what he does to those involved in the abduction of his niece, having learned multiple ways of extracting information, but rather how easily it is to resurrect what it takes to do them. He considers his actions irredeemable and is in no way proud of his conduct but wouldn't hesitate to repeat any of it if it meant keeping his niece or her family safe.

The one thing readers will have to set aside, and trust me it's not easy if you value "clean" manuscripts – "clean" in this case meaning free of errors – is the multiple typos and misused and/or misplaced words that read like the author's first draft. These are good stories for those of us who like the rough-n-tough reluctant protagonist who manages to pull off heroic deeds in magnificent fashion, a man of few words and innovative, creative moments with little to work with but his raw mental and physical strength, courage, and determination. The downside is repeated errors which should've been eliminated by good copy editing.

I really hope there are future Hawk Tate novels because he's a likable hero whose adventures provide good story material and a lot of action overtaking very bad men.

Some profanity.

Father, thank you for the storytellers. Thank you for giving talents and gifts to be embraced and enjoyed. May those who have them know from whom they are given. Please continue to provide stories for Dustin to tell. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.