This comes with every kill. Guilt, I could live with, but no, they need to hitch a ride. Stick by my side for a while.
Bryan Walsh is a hit man with a unique problem. No matter how quickly and efficiently he does his job, it’s not over when the body hits the floor. You see, ghosts of the recently departed who’ve died at his hand follow him around. Sometimes it’s only for a few hours, other times it can be days before those he’s dispatched make their final final departure.
It’s not something he’s ever found easy to deal with, but lately he’s reached somewhat of a breaking point. Unfortunately, he can’t just quit. Once an operative for the IRA in Ireland who killed people in the quest for Irish independence, Bryan is back home in the Bronx now and working for something much more immediate and personal than a cause—keeping his brother, Liam, alive. Though Liam has been in a persistent vegetative state for over two years as a result of a diabetic stroke, Bryan has not been able to bring himself to pull the plug, despite the medical bills piling up faster than he can pull the trigger to raise funds.
Desperate, Bryan takes on a job under circumstances that violate his trusted and established method of operating, and as his seemingly predestined bad fortune would have it, the job goes wrong, resulting in collateral damage that puts Bryan himself in the crosshairs. As result, Bryan is forced to examine his lifelong pattern of bad choices and to confront a question that has haunted him for as long as he can remember—is he a good person who has been pushed and manipulated into no-win circumstances at every turn, or is there something deeper wrong with him, something beyond his control to fix?
Those who’ve followed Angel Luis Colón’s writing over the years know he’s not afraid to roll up his authorial sleeves and explore some dark territory. His short stories and novellas have earned him both a loyal following as well as numerous major award nominations, including the Derringer and the Anthony, and for good reason. In Hell Chose Me, his first full-length novel, Colón invites readers to buckle up and trust him for another, more extensive ride. And man is it worth it.
Using a framework that is not itself new, Colón nevertheless manages to find fresh angles to explore, all through a lens of unflinching, unsentimental truth. Bryan is not a Hollywood hit man with a heart of gold, nor is he an emotionless, stone-cold killer. He is fully aware of how screwed up his life is in every aspect, which makes him aware of both how horrible a person is, as well as how much he has thrown away by making the wrong choice at so many crucial crossroads in his life. He’s mostly resigned to that, and it’s only as things progress and his hand is forced that he realizes that though he can’t change the past, perhaps he can forge a future better than he’d always assumed he was doomed to inhabit.
Using the sparing, yet elegant, prose he is known for, Colón uses Bryan to examine how feelings of obligation combined with toxic relationships, especially when both spring from familial ties, can warp not just a person’s outlook, but arguably fundamentally warp the person himself. Through Bryan’s journey, Colón asks who’s to blame for the resulting reprehensible person. Or is no one to blame, some things just preordained, an unalterable fate to be accepted and dealt with? The question may be easy, but the answer is anything but.
If you’re new to Colón’s writing, Hell Chose Me is the perfect place to jump in and see what you’ve been missing, while readers who’ve been along for the ride since the beginning will delight in seeing Colón stretch out and run for distance this go round. They’ll also be treated to a nice literary Easter egg in the form of one of Colón’s previous characters popping up unexpectedly, but most welcome.
Hell Chose Me is available from Down & Out Books.
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