Holed Up

Jimmy's life is shattered when his mentor and hero, Chevalier, is ruthlessly murdered. Obsessed by a vow of revenge and wanted by the police, he's decided to hole up in the lost Maine mill town where Chevalier was born, living on the top floor of a decrepit Victorian owned by the cranky spinster, Doris, who only knows him under his new alias. Forced to wait until the guarded murderer is accessible, Jimmy attempts to understand his life by writing a novel about his youth: escaping his abusive stepfather, riding freights across the country with hobos, searching for his real father. As he plots the killing via email with his pal Luke who is doing the surveillance, he strays into town and meets Claire. And everything changes. He can't seem to stay away from her though it's against his vow and he runs the risk of discovery. But the town sucks him in, and reluctantly he becomes entangled with Claire, her fourteen-year-old son, her dangerous ex-boyfriend whose family runs the city, her hairdresser friend, and Doris. When all these relationships reach their boiling point, Luke arrives and Jimmy must head for Florida to carry out the killing, but he finds that he's not the same person he was three months earlier.In this humorous and emotional novel set against the streets, apartments, diners, gyms, bars, and poolrooms of Scoggton, Jimmy is forced to decide between his love for Claire and his vow to avenge Chevalier's murder.