In the small town of Parsons, Kansas, 17-year old Greg is devastated when he loses his mother and sister in a horrific car accident caused by an escaped mental patient. To put behind him the desolation and loss he feels-and also to get rid of road rage drivers from the streets-Greg becomes a cop. He is good at it. During this time, life begins to turn around for him: he falls in love and marries his high school sweetheart and finds a renewed passion for life.The family moves to Denver and Greg takes a job as a police officer there. As Greg works the mean streets of Denver, a dark feeling inside of him begins to bubble up. This unexplainable thing, which he tries to keep buried, erupts with full force and with some deep dark strength, it now controls him. Greg becomes obsessively driven by this inner voice telling him to go out and kill. First it is road-rage drivers-then anyone whose looks he doesn’t like. Unable to control the voice and the urges, he cannot help alienating his wife and daughter, who eventually leave him and move back to Kansas. Greg begins screwing up at work on the force and increasingly getting into arguments. One black night out on a “job”, he ends up cornered by his own officers and is shot. Evil has been conquered…or has it all just been a test?
Tbird’s Review:
The Test by B.A. Sherman
4 stars
I was intrigued by this psychological thriller and can hardly wait to see what is coming next for Greg Dorn. I think part of my attraction to this story was I can relate to the location that this story takes place. Parsons Kansas, the small town feel gave what happen to him when he was a teenager more impact as I could feel his loss. With the town circling him and his father during this loss, it was a natural prediction he would want to give something back to them.
Greg’s mother and sister were killed in an accident when a mental patient stole a car and slammed into them. The devastation and pain were overwhelming for him and he lost his way in life for a while. It was one day when he saw an officer stop a car for violation he found his passion. He wanted to be a cop. He wanted to prevent another teenager from experiencing the same loss that crushed his world.
Moving up the ranks, he found he wanted to take his wife and daughter to a bigger city so he could do more to bring order to the streets. Moving to Denver was going to be a transition on its own, but to see the road rage and aggressive driving was more of a shock. Slowly his perception began to change, he wasn’t sure what this voice was that continued to tell him how to handle situation.
The author leaves us wondering if we are witnessing anger taking a personality of its own in this plot, because Greg has a lot to be angry about as more loss and dealing with people’s rage at cops happens in his life and career, or are we seeing depression come to life? Could this be a different psychological issue being born right before our eyes? Slowly he loses himself, what his goals were and dreams. His wife decides that this isn’t the life she signed up for with him and his world starts crumbling beneath him. Could he be the cause of what he was trying to prevent in the final pages of the book.
The ending isn’t flashing red lights and warnings leaving you hanging on the edge of your seat but it should leave you wanting a lot more regarding what is going on with him. I really loved this story, the unknown, the questions and watching the path of this man go from happy to torn apart was done with such subtle detail it was impossible for me to identify when he took the next step into insanity. I did have one problem with the writing style, I felt like repeat phrases, words and meanings were happening to close together and too often but that didn’t take away from the plot that I was following. It is a quick read that will absorb your attention. I look forward to see what is coming next in this series.
B.A. Sherman’s passion is writing psychological thrillers. He lives in Colorado with his wife and daughter and, when not writing novels, he is a police officer in Colorado. He has been in law enforcement for 24 years. The Test is his first full-length novel.
The short stories and books he writes are based on experiences he’s had over the years, with “a heaping spoonful of fiction,” he says. He has published one short story, The Truth, currently available on Amazon.com.
When he’s not writing and working, Brad enjoys hunting, camping, fishing and skiing. These are areas he plans to write about in the future, perhaps incorporating them into a thriller or two.
Twitter: @BAsherman
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bradley.a.sherman
My Website: www.basherman.com
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