Z-View: The Big Ugly

The Big Ugly  by Jake Hinkson.

 

Ellie Bennett is an ex-corrections officer who has just served a year inside Eastgate Penitentiary for assaulting a prisoner. She’s only been out for a day when she accepts a strange job offer from the head of a Christian political advocacy group. He wants her to track down a missing ex-con named Alexis. Although no one knows where Alexis has gone, it seems like everyone in Arkansas is looking for her—from a rich televangelist running for Congress to the governor’s dirty tricks man. When Bennett finds the troubled young woman, she has to decide whether to hand her over to the highest bidder or help her escape from the most powerful men in the state.

Jake Hinkson writes noir… but always with a twist from expected conventions.  In  The Big Ugly our protagonist is a wrongly-convicted, tough ex-con who becomes a private-eye of sorts.  No twist there, right?  Oh, did I mention that our “hero” is a woman?

Ellie Bennett is a tough-talking, rough broad who is all woman.  Ellie finds herself dealing with two-competing factions who want to “silence” Alexis – the woman Ellie has been paid to find.  If Ellie refuses to cooperate she’ll end up back in prison at best and at worst in an unmarked grave with Alexis.

Ellie is in way over her head.  Either Ellie cooperates and still ends up with one of the competing factions after her or she refuses and has both groups after her.  Perhaps there is a third option…

The Big Ugly is for mature audiences due to mature language, sex and violence.

Rating: 4 out of 5