The Unwilling by John Hart

 

It's Gibson French, or Gibbie as he's known to friends, senior year.  He isn't sure what he wants to do with his life after that.  Should he go to college as his parents want?  The war in Vietnam is raging and he feels a pull to enlist and go there as his two older brothers did.  But Robert, his oldest brother, was killed there and Jason, the middle brother, came back but as a broken shell of what he had been.  Does the war deserve another French brother?

Then rumors start to float around that Jason has come back home after his dishonorable discharge and his time in prison.  It's said he runs with the motorcycle gangs now, that he deals drugs and guns and that he doesn't care for anyone.  So Gibbie doesn't know what to do when Jason seeks him out and seems to want to get to know him now that he has grown up.  He goes on an outing with Jason and two girls and finds a man very different from the rumors.

But more trouble arrives.  The girl dating Jason is found horribly murdered.  Jason is arrested and sent back to the penitentiary where he is at the mercy of a psychopath who runs the place.  When the other girl is kidnapped, the police assume that Gibbie is at the heart of that crime and now they are looking for him as well.  But Gibbie has also been kidnapped, a pawn in the power play between the man who runs the prison, Jason and the police.  Can he be saved?

John Hart has written a compelling view of a family torn apart by the times.  The French brothers grew up with a policeman as a father and his black and white view of the world makes it difficult for him to accept his sons as they grow up and have their own ideas.  He is quick to judge and although he loves his sons, he acts first and finds out the facts afterwards.  The novel touches on the national nightmare that the Vietnam war was for so many families.  It highlights the difficulties in growing up and separating from the child one was and it emphasizes family love above all.  The tension is high and is ratcheted higher with every plot twist.  This book is recommended for thriller readers.

I listened to this as an audiobook.  The narrator was clear and did an excellent job.  Although the book is set in the South, there is no jarring Southern accent that so many outside the region get wrong.  He especially did a good job narrating Gibbie and his high school sweetheart.  The only wrong note was that of the powerful psychopath.  His voice is given as a slow, accented voice with a lisp and it doesn't set the stage for the fear that the reader is meant to feel for him.  Overall, the narration was clear and easy to listen to.