Dangerous fish out of water and the kitchen sink might be next

Title: Iron House

Author: John Hart

Progress: 91%

Platform: Kindle

Amazon Rating: four out of five stars

Book 1 out of 107

We are getting close to the end now, and Mr. Hart is bringing all his crazy characters and fraying plot threads together for one final romp.

But first, we have to deal with anther blinding flash of convenience, hopefully the last in the string of supporting characters who wander into the story, tell our hero Michael where to go next, and then disappear.

Iron House is driven by the classic conflict
of New York hitmen versus sexy hillbilly women.
Hey Micheal Chabon and Jon Frazen, top that for a theme!

This last convenient exposition incident (let's call these CEI's, as they happen so often) happened on top of hillbilly HQ, Slaughter Mountain. Mike is sifting through the wreckage of an old, burned-out mansion and pondering how he has reached another dead. Enter stage left: a minor character with a menial job and a lot of knowledge that Mike needs.

Maybe I wouldn’t have taken notice of these CEI characters if I hadn’t been reading with the goal of analyzing, of trying to figure out what makes this novel tick. Maybe I would fly right by these moments and get to the good parts, the violence, the stand offs, and the encounters with angry mountain people.

But wow, Mr. Hart does rely on this particular writer’s crutch a lot. Main character stuck? Don’t feel the need to have him earn the knowledge he needs to get to the next plot point? Just have him bump into someone who knows all the answers.

In between the contrivances, we get the good stuff that Mr. Hart is in a rush to show off. the scene where Michael, the New York hit man, confronts a crazy, old, mountain woman armed with a filthy mouth and a shotgun was terrific. I wasn’t expecting a fish-out-of-water twist in a book like this, and yet there it was and it totally worked. Great scene.

That scene sets up Michael’s final plan to bring down the good senator. He’s got all the pieces in place for a devastating trap, but wait! Another twist! Mike’s almost adopted mother turns out to be crazy, just like her actually adopted son, Julian. And it’s her other personality, her EVIL other self, that has been doing all the killing.

Let’s do a quick check list of all the thriller elements in Iron House…

Super assassin

Mafia

Corrupt politician

Rich people

Satanism (or maybe just witchcraft, unclear, we have yet to get back to the attic with the pentagram)

Psychopathic killer who wears overly fancy clothes

Creepy old orphanage
Hillbilly witches

Child abuse with an evil twist of creative cruelty

Government agents in black SUVs

Pregnant woman (who is also incredibly hot) in great peril

And now, yes, split personalities

Can we possibly get to the end of this book without one more soap opera moment? Will someone be hit in the head and develop amnesia? Will our hero reveal that he has terminal cancer on the last page? Is maybe someone a secret Russian spy? Maybe someone is actually an alien sent to our world to learn about humanity and became tragically addicted to copious amounts of drama.

So what did we learn today? It turns out that if you throw in every thriller trope you can fit within 350 pages or so, you too can get a 4 out of 5 star review on Amazon and a nice note from Next Gingrich. (Seriously, Newt tweeted about how much he liked this book.)

That would be one of just a very few things Newt and I kind of agree on. It’s a lot of fun. Ridiculous. But fun.