By Linda Radtke, courtesy The Montpelier Bridge

“Rack wasn’t intimidated. He was smart. He liked a good fight.” That opening line sets the tone for Jim Hogue’s new book, “Rack” (Logosophia, 2025), a hard-boiled mystery whose clipped prose and tough guy ethos feel deliberately at odds with its Vermont setting. From the first page, Hogue signals this will not be a gentle story of rural order and quiet virtue, but rather a fast-paced confrontation with violence, exploitation, and corruption — delivered in a voice as blunt and unsentimental as its protagonist.

Hogue does not flinch from the brutal realities that lie beyond Vermont’s borders. The novel confronts the violence of cartel murders and gang enforcement, as well as the desperate plight of those attempting to cross the border in search of safety or opportunity. These scenes give weight to the book’s critique of systems that profit from suffering while maintaining a veneer of humanitarian righteousness. By linking global exploitation to local complicity, Hogue makes the reader confront the fact that Vermont is not insulated from the consequences of these evil forces, only buffered by distance and denial.

Hogue paints a protagonist who is out of place in Vermont. The hard-boiled prose, the clipped declarative sentences recall early Hemingway, where action outruns reflection and violence is treated as a practical tool. Rack is a tough guy, a bruiser, and a fixer who confronts evil and gets the job done. One can easily imagine him played by Liam Neeson — grim, aging, yet still dangerous. (Humphrey Bogart also comes to mind.) Rack mistrusts nearly all conventions and institutions. Governmental agencies, lawyers, and NGOs come in for scorn; in Hogue’s Vermont, organizations charged with moral authority are compromised by misuse of resettlement funds, money laundering, and carefully managed cover-ups. This deep cynicism places Rack squarely at odds with Vermont’s image as a place of gentility and civic trust.

Hogue and his allies confront corruption head on in an elaborate fast-paced sting operation that drives the novel to a satisfying resolution. Rack unearths layers of deception, including child prostitution rings operating within seemingly virtuous Vermont itself. The contrast between pastoral landscapes and hidden brutality is deliberate and unsettling, reinforcing the novel’s insistence that evil is not confined to distant borders or faceless cities.

Despite the darkness of its subject matter — human trafficking and the power of cartels — the novel is leavened by witty and literary playfulness. Wry asides reveal Hogue’s clear love of literature. Dickens appears through a character named Micawber and echoes of the insinuating forger Uriah Heep. Hogue leavens the darkness with clever, often mordant asides. Rack’s voice is dryly comic, skewering hypocrisy wherever he finds it. Lines such as “Don’t look a grift horse in the mouth” capture the novel’s governing skepticism, especially when Rack peels back the veneer of so-called humanitarian enterprises to reveal the corruption beneath. Idealistic language, Hogue suggests, can be a most effective disguise for exploitation. These moments of wit do more than provide relief; they sharpen the novel’s critique. By pairing fast-paced action with sardonic observation, Hogue underscores how corruption often flourishes precisely where virtue is loudly proclaimed.

For all his abrasiveness, Rack loves rural Vermont, and Hogue clearly does as well. The novel pauses for an affectionate excursion into maple sugaring. Familiar landscapes, towns, and roads abound for readers who know the state. That grounding of place tempers Rack’s brutality and anchors the story that feels lived-in rather than idealized. There is also a love interest, a human counterweight to Rack’s abrasiveness, and keeps the novel from collapsing into pure cynicism.

At the same time, Hogue widens his lens to examine the systems that purport to help the vulnerable yet quietly profit from governmental support meant for those in need. Police forces are compromised, conspiracies proliferate, and trust is consistently misplaced. Hogue’s point is clear: appearances deceive, and even the most tranquil landscapes can conceal elaborate networks of exploitation.

I am not usually drawn to action-packed mysteries; these days I prefer gentler stories that eschew political critiques. Yet “Rack” held my attention precisely because of its refusal to flatter its setting or its readers. Hogue asks us to look past Vermont’s comforting self-image and consider what might be lurking beneath it. Whether or not one shares the bleak world view of “Rack,” the novel makes a persuasive case that darkness does not require an urban address. In Hogue’s Vermont, and perhaps in our own, appearances are the most dangerous fiction of all. The novel may be abrasive, but it is also alert, literate, and deeply rooted in Vermont — just not the Vermont we usually like to imagine.