Throwback Thursday: Dead Air by Scott Overton
Reviewed by Melanie Marttila
Scott Overton’s first novel was a thriller and published by Sudbury’s Your Scrivener Press in 2012. After the publisher ceased operations, the author reclaimed his rights and now sells Dead Air, along with the rest of his self-published books, most of them speculative fiction, independently.
When morning radio host Lee Garrett finds a death threat on his control console, he shrugs it off as a prank. Then, a series of minor incidents escalates into attempts on his life. The suspects are many and the police are disinterested. The radio career he loved has become drudgery, and his marriage has ended in divorce.
In the middle of his personal crisis and persecution, he befriends a blind boy and his counsellor, who offer him hope. Maybe he can make a fresh start. Maybe he can admit that he’s the source of a lot of his own problems.
When the deadliest assault yet claims an innocent victim, Garrett knows he has no choice; he has to find his persecutors and force a confrontation.
I wasn’t in love with the character of Lee Garrett, but that’s exactly the way it had to be for Dead Air to be a successful thriller.
Lee Garrett has made enemies over the years, enough to fill a room with the usual suspects, and his wife left him, taking their two children. She’s making a new life for herself, while Garrett’s disillusioned and jaded and not a little depressed. He’s a schmuck, steeped in a good dose of self-sorrow. Not an attractive package.
Garrett has his redeeming qualities, though. The reasons he’s made all those enemies is because he generally tried to do the right thing and exposed their varied wrongdoings in the process. He’s still in love with his wife, cares deeply for his children, and the friends he has are the dependable kind that come through when the going gets tough.
A truly bad person doesn’t have those kinds of friends.
Then he makes friends with Paul, a boy who recently lost his sight, and Candace, his CNIB counsellor. As the relationship develops, Garrett learns a lot about himself, and how he is the author of his own misery.
He also makes a staunch ally by virtue of an act of kindness, and wins over the detective assigned to his case despite having been black-listed for ruining another officer’s career.
By the time Garrett exposes that act that haunts his life and underpins many of his poor decisions, I realized I liked Garrett, despite his not inconsiderable flaws.
Dead Air is a novel about hard-won redemption and a fascinating character study as well as a thriller with enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing until the end.
About the Author
As the host of a radio morning show for most of his 30+ years in broadcasting, Scott Overton entertained and informed thousands of groggy people as they faced each new day. He brings those same skills and perspectives to his writing, which includes science fiction and fantasy, mainstream and thriller fiction, and even a children’s book.
His passions include scuba diving and a couple of classic cars, in which he hopes to someday find enough story inspiration to make them tax-deductible.
Scott’s debut novel Dead Air was first published by Scrivener Press. Read a sample chapter, watch the book trailer, and more here.
About the Reviewer
Melanie Marttila (she/her) is an #ActuallyAutistic SFF author-in-progress, writing poetry and tales of hope in the face of adversity. Her poetry has appeared in The /tƐmz/ Review, Polar Starlight, Sulphur, and her debut poetry collection, The Art of Floating, was published in 2024 by Latitude 46. Her short fiction has appeared in SuperCanucks, Through the Portal, and Pulp Literature. She is a settler writing in Sudbury, or ‘N’Swakamok, on Robinson-Huron Treaty territory, home of the Atikameksheng Anishnawbek and the Wahnapitae First Nation, in the house where three generations of her family have lived, on the street that bears her surname, with her spouse and their dog.
Book Details
Publisher : No Walls Publishing
Publication date : March 26 2016
Edition : 2nd Edition
Language : English
Print length : 316 pages
ISBN-10 : 0993697356
ISBN-13 : 978-0993697357
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