Dark Ride

April 1, 2023

Happy-go-lucky stoner Hardy "Hardly" Reed is just getting by when he spots two young children sitting alone at the amusement park where he works as a minimum-wage scare actor. He can tell they've been abused and reports the situation to the Child Protective Service, which is too swamped to do much. So Hardly decides to protect the children on his own. Prepub Alert.

Copyright 2023 Library Journal

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2023
Twenty-three-year-old Hardy Reed is a likable slacker who holds a get-by job and is happy letting the universe determine what's next. But when he sees odd markings on the skin of two school-age children and discovers the marks aren't tattoos but cigarette burns, he can't help but investigate. His curiosity and concern for the children's well-being pulls him into something sinister, in this original take on the familiar story of the innocent bystander who becomes embroiled in criminal activity and must go on the offensive to get out alive. Hardy uses the amateur sleuth's familiar tools--interviews, library research, surveillance, hacker chums--but makes them delightfully fresh. As the story darkens, bad people turn violent and Hardy's friends tell him to save himself and get out. He wonders how he lost his willingness to be fate's football. At first, he attributes the change to a feeling of protective responsibility to children. Later, he realizes his involvement makes him, for the first time in his life, feel as though he matters. Then there's another revelation, but that's the author's surprise.

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Starred review from August 14, 2023
This stellar outing from Berney (November Road) centers on 23-year-old slacker Hardy Reed, whose conscience thrusts him into a dangerous investigation. In an unnamed Midwestern city, Hardy—whose bare-minimum work ethic has earned him the nickname “Hardly”—passes his days getting stoned with friends after shifts at an amusement park. That changes one day at the park when he sees two kids on a bench with what appear to be cigarette burns. He’s horrified, and despite his typically listless demeanor, attempts to stir up an investigation. When he speaks to Child Services, he’s rebuffed by the overwhelmed workers whose caseloads are outpacing their capacities. Haunted by the notion that the children remain at risk, Hardy attempts to save them on his own. As he gathers allies, he learns that the children’s father is an attorney and a violent drug dealer, and that finding justice might be even more dangerous than he expected. Hardy is a memorable hero with an extremely satisfying arc, and Berney draws the supporting players with equal care, wringing pathos from their interplay as much as the heartbreaking premise. Few readers will finish this unmoved. Agent: Shane Salerno, Story Factory.

August 1, 2023

Hardy "Hardly" Reed is a lost 23-year-old who spends his days smoking weed and working a dead-end job in the evening, where he plays a ghost at the Haunted Frontier theme park. That works for him, until he's at a municipal building and sees a boy and a girl sitting on a bench outside an office. They appear to be about six or seven years old, and Hardly isn't too stoned to recognize that they both have cigarette burns on their bodies. Although he tries to report it to Child Protection Services, he doesn't have enough information to interest anyone. But he can't forget the kids. He has few resources he can turn to for help, but a realtor gives him a couple tips for locating their family. He bumbles his way through his investigation, getting verbally attacked and physically assaulted. As he slowly changes his life, Hardly comes to a realization: He's never been able to take care of himself, but now he might be the only one who can save two children. VERDICT The author of the multi-award-winning November Road introduces an unlikely antihero in an unusual story with an ambiguous ending. For fans of noir crime fiction.--Lesa Holstine

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2023
A young man finds purpose when he becomes obsessed with saving two children from their abusive father. Hardy "Hardly" Reed isn't really living his best life, though he begins his story by saying, "I have everything I need and want." Working as the Dead Sheriff at Haunted Frontier amusement park and smoking a lot of weed can kill only so many hours of the day. His life changes when he sees two children with unmistakable cigarette burns on their bodies. His heretofore dormant investigative skills lead him to make a report to Child Protective Services, then to interview the girls' elementary school teacher. Along the way he finds unexpected help from a glamorous 40-something real estate agent, a "goth chick," her metal-loving grandmother, and a teenager who "looks like a stick insect with braces." In true noir fashion, Hardly is horribly beaten up, and from there his quest becomes an obsession--one he may even be willing to trade his whole life for. Hardly is a sad sack for sure, and it takes a while for him to earn all of our sympathy. His motivation is pure--who doesn't want to save kids?--but he's someone that things happen to rather than someone who makes things happen. It takes most of the novel for him to finally make some real decisions--and then, he does so with such single-mindedness that it feels like overcompensation. But that, of course, is one of Berney's points: This novel is about a bland, dead-end white boy in a bland, dead-end (unnamed) Midwestern town who has learned to expect nothing from life but more of the same. Hardly's trajectory is helped by Berney's superb writing; sometimes self-consciously noir ("I look at a hand holding a gun. My hand. My gun"), sometimes just colorful ("A woman in front of me worries into her phone about a suspicious lump in her armpit"), it adds both gravity and grace to the protagonist's stubborn, self-destructive path. The whole novel is worth it for the poignant beauty of the final paragraph.

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