The Burning Hill by A. D. Flint
Genre: Crime/Action
Publisher: Unbound
Publication Date: 2018
Blurb
On the run from unjust court-martial back home, a young British soldier gets robbed and shot on Copacabana Beach. The bullet in Jake‘s head should have been fatal, but miraculously, it saves him from a previously undetected condition that soon would have killed him.
Jake doesn’t believe in fate, nor does he feel he owes anything to anybody, but he does hate injustice. Vilson, the teenage favela kid who fired the bullet, is a victim of injustice, in a corner with a corrupt cop and a sadistic drug-lord after his blood.
With a turf war erupting in Vilson’s favela, fear stalks every narrow alleyway, and anyone dragged up to the notorious Burning Hill had better hope they’re dead before they get there. But it’s not just fear that shapes life in the favela, belief is also powerful, able to both save and destroy.
The Burning Hill is about the power of belief and one man’s desire for justice at any cost. (from Barnes and Noble)
Review
In one word: amazing.
Emotional, character-driven action
From the first page to the last, this novel gripped my heart.
The book opens with a police crackdown on Brazilian street children. Translation: Cops shooting indiscriminately at unarmed kids at night on the church grounds where they are camped out on cardboard box beds. Through the eyes of young Vilson, Flint conjures up the horror and fear of life as a street child, the callous cruelty of the police force, and the relative indifference of the public who prefer not to see the injustice. It’s heart-wrenching.
There were moments when I held my breath, too anxious about the characters to stop reading. One more chapter, then I’ll get a breather, I thought. Hours later, I resurfaced at the end of the novel. Gulping for air. Stunned. Wanting, desperately, to talk to someone else about it, to share this experience with them. It’s intense.
Complex, realistic characters
This isn’t a simplistic good versus bad premise. The cops aren’t uniformly evil and the victims aren’t totally good. Real people are more complicated, and The Burning Hill reflects this.
Jake, for example, has complicated motives for wanting to help Vilson. He’s not a naturally altruistic man. But the belligerent, stubborn streak that refused to let him sign off on someone else’s version of events and landed him in hot water in Britain now prods him to seek out the boy who shot him. He’ll stand up for the truth even if it paints him as less than heroic.
All of the characters have their internal conflicts. Through shifting points of view, Flint reveals their secrets, their fears, their contradictory natures. A drug lord or a lonely kid scared of dying alone? A cruel, greedy man or a desperate man fearful of losing what little he has? A passionate lawyer or a woman unsure of her standing in her family?
Sympathetic or not, each person has dark and light sides to their natures. The compassionate can harm. The evil can die with integrity.
These characters will stay with me for a long time. They no longer feel like characters created by words on a page. They feel like people who might be living half a world away, yet as familiar to me as the people in my neighborhood.
Vivid setting
Flint doesn’t just describe life in the favela. He took me from my comfort zone and set me squarely down in an unfamiliar city. Life is brutal, fearful, and often short in this world.
The young drug lord Anjo and his army of followers, known as the “Red Ants,” rule the favela. They terrorize everyone. They and the corrupt police force have a deal: with money changing hands and backroom deals, the favela is theirs to rule. It saves the police from needing to police the worst part of the city, and it keeps the Red Ants firmly in control of the drug market there.
Those who defy them are dragged to the infamous “Burning Hill.” The charred corpses of the Red Ants’ previous victims lie there, a reminder of the consequences of defiance. There’s no justice for those victims.
It’s often difficult to read these parts of the book. Yet the story compelled me to keep reading, even when I wanted to look away.
At the same time, there are moments of compassion and breath-taking beauty in unexpected places. A change of clothes and a shower for a filthy man. A glass of lemonade for the thirsty, a mango for a hungry hitchhiker. A spiritual seer who brings warnings and hope for the troubled.
The juxtaposition of beauty and darkness creates a vivid image of life in Brazil.
Deep ideas
Justice isn’t always found here. Flint shows this. But he also shows that figuring out what is justice isn’t always easy. What does it look like in this culture, in these circumstances?
As Jake and the young lawyer Eliane find, the plans of well-meaning people can hurt the people one wants to help. Simply because someone acts out of compassion doesn’t mean that the results will be good. Winning the war may be impossible, too.
Flint leaves us with lots of things to ponder.
Final thoughts
This novel deserves a wide audience. It’s compelling and important and heart-breaking. I was mesmerized. Words cannot do it justice. The only thing that will is to read–and re-read–it.
Thanks to Anne Cater for setting up this blog tour for The Burning Hill. I received a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.
About A. D. Flint
The idea for the story came from a robbery the author saw when he lived in Brazil that had a link with the massacre of street children outside a Rio church years earlier. What played out in the aftermath of the robbery on live TV news was an embodiment of the desperation of life at the bottom of the heap, and shocked a society inured to everyday violence.
The story also explores how the fusion of religions like Candomblé and Umbanda with Catholicism can create powerful beliefs.
The author now lives on the south coast of England with his Brazilian wife, two boys and an excitable dog. His next novel is about a cult, set in Guyana, where he previously worked in the sugar industry.
Follow him on Twitter: @Brazil_Thriller