7.30.2012

Book Review: Baby Shark's Showdown at Chigger Flats

Librarian's note: The WGH bought me a Samsung Galaxy Tab2 to play with while he's gone on vacation. The first thing I did was download the software for both Kindle and Nook - and my old pal Robert Fate gifted me with a copy of his latest Baby Shark book. How's that for a great way to break in my new toy?

It's been nearly three years since we last saw Kristin Van Dijk (aka Baby Shark), but Robert Fate's latest Baby Shark adventure, Showdown at Chigger Flats, definitely rewards those of us who have been waiting so patiently. The story opens in May 1960 – eight years following the life-changing event from which Kristin emerged as Baby Shark – and finds her in the midst of a showdown ten years in the making.

After ten years behind bars, the bloodthirsty murderer Walter Fairchild breaks out of a Texas prison with revenge on his mind, and the cantankerous, Fort Worth private eye Otis Millett is at the top of his list. After several failed attempts to kill Otis, the Fairchild clan finally finds success in kidnapping him.

This doesn't sit well with Otis' partner, Kristin Van Dijk aka Baby Shark, who forms a fragile bond with law enforcement to rescue him before he is tortured and killed. Kristin is a lethal handful at the best of times, but threatening Otis puts her in a particularly dangerous frame of mind. Get ready for some quintessential Baby Shark action-adventure as Kristin, Henry Chin, and a U.S. Marshal with pale green eyes go hunting for trouble in the oilfields of West Texas.


All the elements we love about Baby Shark – big guns, bad guys, gorgeous, gutsy women and the hot, dusty West Texas landscape – are back in Fate's familiar narrative style: eloquently sparse and brilliantly fast-paced. What I love most about this series is Fate's uncanny ability to put us squarely into the mind of our heroine, allowing us to experience her adventures from her own, unambiguous point of view, and to see both her tough and tender sides with disarming authenticity.

Chigger Flats delivers on its promise of "quintessential Baby Shark action-adventure," and then some. In addition to the inordinate number of bodies that somehow always seem to pile up around her, Kristin is also faced with some hard choices regarding her future, from both a professional and personal standpoint.

Fans of this series should not be disappointed in this latest installment – although it seems too long since we last caught up with Baby Shark, Showdown at Chigger Flats definitely makes it worth the wait.

[Learn more about Robert Fate's Baby Shark books at his website: www.robertfate.com. Baby Shark's Showdown at Chigger Flats is available in Kindle format at Amazon.]

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