A news release about the murder of an innocent woman starts Will Bowron’s VIGILANT off with a bang, pulling readers into an unfamiliar world where costumed vigilantes roam the streets dispensing justice. Or are they wreaking vengeance, looking for fame or making an honest living by getting paid off by an overworked police force? The moral lines are very blurry in Bowron’s intriguing debut novel, as Taylor Gardner finds when he tracks down the elusive Timothy Hudson, the man who started it all. Hudson serves as the reader’s guide to the dicey ethics of vigilantism, although Taylor soon learns that he’s rather an unreliable narrator. VIGILANT is well-structured, shifting perspectives–and narrative styles– between the naive Taylor and a cast of shady characters, including Sam, a man reduced to nearly animalistic instincts in order to survive. His ‘friend’ Violet is a homeless woman who lost her middle-class life of job, husband, and suburban house through a gambling addiction; and Jessica, a policewoman so underpaid and undervalued, she has to resort to prostitution and drug dealing just to get by. On either side of the class divide, Taylor and Violet serve as the moral centers of the story, each questioning other’s, and their own, actions in a way that gives the reader some relief from the endless circles of ethically confounding reasoning and logic involved in vigilantism.

VIGILANT is the first part of what is meant to be an ongoing series, which should have been made clearer from the beginning. About halfway through the novel, the pacing starts to feel a bit slow as most of the characters’ arcs stay stubbornly disconnected from one another. There is a huge jolt of energy–and dark humor–when the town’s entire vigilante force turns out to try to track down the wayward Sam; this loose and somewhat hilarious assortment of bulletproof-vested crimefighters and Halloween-masked wannabes is just what the story needs it begins to get a little bogged in Taylor’s hand-wringing and self-righteousness. This is followed by a nice twist in Hudson’s intentions and an intriguing possibility opens up for where this narrative is headed, quickening the pace and drawing readers deeper into the very specific world Bowron has created.

Will Bowron’s well-written and engaging debut novel, VIGILANT, follows the paths of a disparate cast of characters as they converge in subtle and explosive ways.

~Shari Simpson for IndieReader