And now for a change in our regular programming, this week we feature a story full of spraying bullets and spilling blood.

Terror of Living by Urban Waite may remind you of Breaking Bad. Switch out Breaking’s Albuquerque setting for the mountains that straddle Washington state and British Columbia, add in your version of Bryan Cranston and let the troubles begin.

The drug-runner protagonist is Phil Hunt, a man who made a big mistake in his youth. Doubtless his high school classmates have racked up success after success, while Phil struggles along, running a horse stable that never breaks even. You can see why he might want some quick cash.

Bobby Drake is a young rural sheriff whose father went the crooked cop route. Drake crosses his T’s and dots his I’s on the job, to win back honor to the family name. When he investigates an abandoned car on a mountain road, he crosses paths with Phil Hunt.

Then there is Grady Fisher, who never goes anywhere with out his bag of knives. Might have to butcher a deer, bone a chicken, or do other, um, dirty jobs for people who sell, um, expensive goods and don’t get paid. Grady breaks seven of the ten commandment every week and does so with imagination and delicious bursts of adrenalin.

Waite stocked his story with sundry unnamed characters, all of which you would never want to meet in real life. And don’t memorize them by their cars, because they constantly get stolen in this tale.

You’ll also learn some clever hiding places for drugs.

For the main characters, the stakes are high. The story clips along, a believable progression of mayhem and regret until about 3/4 of the way through, when the author resorts to action for action’s sake. One character, for instance, dies in a shower of bullets. Or so I thought. But no, he raises himself up, his body full of holes, his shirt sticky with blood, and he forges ahead for another chapter or two.

Next time I need some quick cash, I’ll drive for Uber.

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