home > mystery novel reviews > baby shark

Baby Shark

by Robert Fate

Baby Shark is the beginning of a series about a girl named Kristin by first-time author Robert Fate. This is an unusual mystery novel, with all the main characters murderers – albeit for a very good reason. Mr. Fate, a former Marine veteran, skillfully types a gritty tale reflecting his knowledge and understanding of self-defense as well as necessary killing. The only difference is that the novel isn't about any conventional war. It's about war, all right, but the war is fought against a very rough element indeed who are part of our society in real life as well as in fiction.

Kristin Van Dijk tells us the complete tale in her own words. Her father took her around Texas with him, at her own choice, while he hustled at pool tables. He always called her Baby, even though Kristin was seventeen when the story opens. The first chapter describes why she seeks revenge through the rest of the book – she witnesses her father murdered along with several others, was herself raped and brutally beaten by the same motorcycle gang, left for dead, and then rescued by Henry Chin, a Chinese American and owner of the bar who was himself left for dead when the gang set his place afire before they roared away.

Kristin and Henry gradually recover, and Kristin determines to avenge herself and her father. Henry teaches her all he can, then she learns from several different experts Henry chooses how to be both an expert marksman, how to play a winning game of pool, how to keep in top physical shape, how to defend herself like a pro, and how to kill.

Kristin goes on a trip with one of her teachers around the western part of Texas with the man who taught her how to win at 9 ball. Expert that she now is, she wins all but a few, and begins to make money. Her teacher calls her Baby Shark.

Henry, plus her other teachers and older friends eventually discover one of the original men who raped her. This is the first murder. The remainder of Baby Shark chronicles the successful search and eventual dispatch of the remaining members of the motorcycle gang responsible for the murders, rape and destruction (psychological as well as physical) they caused.

Part of the tale involves a handsome male to whom Kristin is attracted – until she discovers his relationship to the worst of the gang members. When I initially received this book as an advance copy and saw the cover, I didn't really expect to enjoy what I read. I'm not a fan of pool (even though I once played – badly!), but I found I could hardly leave the volume until I'd read it through. Baby Shark isn't just about pool; it's about revenge and using superior tactics to those used by the initial perpetrators themselves. Novelists have used murderers as their protagonists before, but never in the way this author portrays them. Applause for Robert Fate!

Alan Paul Curtis

back