Cops grow a tough shell. They have to, I
am told, or they’ll never make it. The violence, injustice and dark underside
of the human condition that they witness on a regular basis hardens them.
Everyone is a suspect. They eat hoagie sandwiches while cracking jokes together
at gruesome murder scenes. Take, for example, Detroit homicide detective Jacob
Miller: he’s been on the job for thirteen years, seen it all, hell, even his
dad was a cop, even if they aren’t speaking to each other any more.
Jacob Miller is also the main character of
“Pura Vida”, the first novel by Jim Utsler, who has been coming to the
Tamarindo area for a dozen years, each year trying to stay a bit longer. But
back to detective Miller who, along with Albert, his work partner of five
years, decide finally that enough is enough in regard to a drug dealer by the
name of Willy, who has taken “scumbag” to a new level with some of his
unspeakable practices. So the two cops decide to teach him a little lesson and
abscond with some of his money in the process. Their real problem starts when
Albert shoots and kills Willy. They do a poor job of covering it up and
eventually get thumbed. Miller decides to rat his partner out for in exchange
for a short term at a minimum security federal pen. During his five year stint,
he meets some higher-end crooks and finds a way to skim a fellow inmate who has
illegally hidden a lot of money in off-shore accounts.
When he is released, Miller knows he can’t
stay anywhere near Detroit, so he grabs some of his money and makes his way to the
Pacific coastline of Costa Rica, moving into a little town that looks a lot
like Tamarindo and Langosta. Utsler’s portrayal of some of the atypical ex-pat characters
here is a hoot, something, I believe, he enjoyed lampooning. But wait! One of
the affluent gringas turns up dead, brutally murdered. And Miller cannot resist
re-donning his detective’s cap and solving the crime. This actually lands him
in a tureen of trouble as his good gesture receives international press
coverage, and the guy he burned in The Pen hears about it.
Utsler told me he wanted to write a novel
about revenge and he certainly has accomplished that. I think he did a splendid
job of portraying Miller’s detached character and I particularly liked the language
used for the main character’s inner reflections at the beginning of some of the
chapters. And there is also a bit of romance, which may be part of the subject
matter for Utsler’s second novel, which he is currently writing. Jim assured me
that it will be “driven by the same search for some sort of passive-aggressive
salvation as in ‘Pura Vida’”. I will definitely read it.
“Pura Vida” is available at Jaime Peligro
book store in Playa Tamarindo.
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