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Zero at the Bone Review
"Zero At The Bone" represents the best of both worlds. It excites the emotions in the way a good thriller should, but it also stirs the deeper feelings of loneliness and connection we associate with tragedy. With her new book, author Jane Seville balance and blends the romantic, criminal and emotional into a gripping love story of the highest caliber.
The premise is deceptively simple if one perceives this as merely a "gay romantic thriller". That said, one might expect a hitman and his dark underworld to merely serve as a backdrop or surface material for explicit homoerotic interludes. But they're not. Here, the complexities of organized crime are given as much attention and compelling detail as the emotional terrain of protagonists Jack and D's relationship. To say the aforementioned characters are vividly brought to life is to put it mildly.
Throughout the story, Seville keeps hitman D's internal tensions visceral and engaging; depicting his alertness to ubiquitous dangers while emanating sangfroid, bristling under his confidant X's censure but in need of her tutelage, drawn to civilian Jack but made anxious by him. It's all there in thoughtful detail as this is a sad, damaged man and Seville conveys his guilt and repression with aching clarity. When he decides not to take a mob ordered hit on witness Jack Francisco, the reader is privy to a provocative, no-holds barred look inside a repressed criminal at a personal crossroads. And while at first he's written to seem cold and detached, it makes it fascinating when he's skewered by the arrow of true love.
Alas, these feelings for Jack cause him to unravel, and we can feel it. Not every writer can so powerfully render that physical sense through words. Seville doesn't just write passion between men but somehow takes us inside it, so that we understand what it would be like to exist as D... to inhabit a body built up to block all emotional attachment and now suddenly be flooded with nonstop longing.
Seville's commitment to the character of Jack-- who delivers "Zero"'s romantic heart-- is equally dedicated. With his character, she incisively details one proud man's descent into fear and survival mode. At first (after deciding not to kill him) D serves as a less formal type of `Witness Protection' for Jack. And when the two fall in love the stakes are raised considerably. Open-faced with fear and bewilderment, dallying in macho even as he quivers in dire expectation, Jack is forced to undergo considerable change. And it's quite exciting it read that as he uncovers such inner-strength and ferocity, he becomes his lover's equal.
However, D is understandably at odds with his repressed homosexuality and this makes for fascinating scenes when set against Jack's lovesick weary openness. Atop it all, there's a moral imperative to Jack's character; a law-abiding medical surgeon. Hence, D's past is a considerable burden and begs moral compromise. He assesses the unsettling acts of D's hitman past and the implausibility of any real future together but cannot be free of D and the pain of loving such a man. It's as if--even in their sort time spent together-- they've marked one another for life. And it's too the author's credit that the reader genuinely believes someone like Jack could fall in love with a killer to begin with.
At first D attempts to not personalize his contact with Jack (while together in hiding) but platonic exchanges soon creak open the floodgates. There's one scene where Jack aids a wounded D-- purely as a doctor-- and the reader is reminded that slow, subtle eroticism is after all possible in modern gay fiction. Now the actual sex, while not particularly explicit, is still romantically explicit; revealing and withholding in perfect proportion.
"Zero" is also one of the most exciting and suspenseful novels I've read in quite some time; the story speeds along, the romance made all the more richer by the intense action sequences. Gripping as well as smart, it feels at times almost like "Brokeback Mountain" blended together with "No Country for Old Men". Even the prefatory motel sequence is marked by fury, loneliness, and the ferocious thrill of the illicit. Later on, there's a remarkable sequence in a warehouse in which D is trapped and held at gunpoint by an adversary while cradling his wounded lover. His emotional state is one anybody could fathom, though it's hard to put a name to it -- defensive acknowledgment? Pained hysteria? Seville renders the moment with brutal dialogue and evocative descriptions; a life-or-death exchange that's charged, emotional and defining with the sense that this man's last chance at happiness lays bleeding in his arms.
From this, Seville successfully lies out and examines themes that tie together beautifully while avoiding traditional rigidity of "plot". Few will be unsatisfied with the book's evocation of love between two very different men. Also, the supporting characters are vivid and finely drawn as well. The story's villains deeply unsettling but never one-note. And the book avoids an ending of soppy moralizing or fairy tale romance in favor of a kind of ambiguity whilst still allowing one to imagine certain things far past the actual end. Ultimately, what we have here is a "gay romantic thriller" that transcends all such labels to become a story with universal appeal and the kinds of characters that will stay with you forever. Trust me, it's a knockout.
Zero at the Bone Overview
After witnessing a mob hit, surgeon Jack Francisco is put into protective custody to keep him safe until he can testify. A hitman known only as D is blackmailed into killing Jack, but when he tracks him down, his weary conscience won't allow him to murder an innocent man. Finding in each other an unlikely ally, Jack and D are soon on the run from shadowy enemies.Forced to work together to survive, the two men forge a bond that ripens into unexpected passion. Jack sees the wounded soul beneath D's cold, detached exterior, and D finds in Jack the person who can help him reclaim the man he once was. As the day of Jack's testimony approaches, he and D find themselves not only fighting for their lives... but also fighting for their future. A future together.
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