Elena Maldonado has done something to get her savagely beaten, but the guy that ordered this didn't reckon with her father, Ray Cruz. Cruz is a retired jack of all trades fixer for bad guys, extremely dangerous to anyone who hurts his family. This is a violent, well plotted novel that would appeal to many people. Because it was so well written and fast-paced, I read it in a sitting. But it definitely is not for the faint of heart. Some people complain about the ending. I think it fit the scenario well. There are tons of gory murders, threats, near misses and resolution. We know what Elena did, who was involved and what happened to them. Sadly, one guy gets away with his bad behavior, but hey-- life isn't fair. Do NOT read this if gory violence that is usually senseless is not your thing. I don't mind it, but would not choose it. I received an advanced reader copy of this book from NetGalley for my truthful review.

A taut, edgy and action packed thriller the book is a fabulous read for any crime fiction lover. The character of Ray is that of a hard man with his own sense of what justice is and this comes to the fore when his family is in danger. The softer side of him is revealed as the guilt from not being there for his daughter is laid out for all to read about. He is a character walking a tight rope between doing what is right as opposed to what is legal. The protectiveness he feels for his daughter is a constant thread in the book and its a feeling that we the reader are also submitted to. I felt that the question was asked off me too , what would i do to avenge a great wrong on my family if i had the means and resources that Ray had. This is my first book from this author but it has made me search for others by him. What i would call a hidden gem of a author and one whose books need to be added to my TBR pile. So if you want an action packed, fast paced thriller complete with bloodshed and a thread of fatherly revenge then get your fingers to do a little research and buy the book. You wont be disappointed if you do.

The phrase 'vengeance is mine' rang a bell at the back of my mind, and, on looking it up I found it comes from the Book of Deuteronomy which is brilliantly apt for this thriller. Opening with a shocking act of violence that catches the reader off guard as much as it does the victim, you spend the rest of the book picking your jaw off the floor and wondering just who the hell the good guys in this situation are.

Just for starters, it sure as hell is not the police.

In New York City, a young woman named Elena, is viciously beaten by heavies hired for the job by Robert Meister, a local face and name. What she has done to incur the beating-which is absolutely and completely not her fault-is not immediately clear. What is , however, is that she anticipates any form of repayment will not be seen through the courts of justice and through the police. After attending a ER and refusing to give any details as to how she sustained her injuries, it is clear that prejudice against those of non-white backgrounds has seriously undermined Elena's circle of trust in any form of restorative justice,

As her father, Ray, used to be heavily involved in this life, he is the one she turns to for protection and although she does not ask for it, some part of her must know that seeing his daughter bought so low and in such pain would activate his previous persona. And it does, in spectacular and bloody ways. The book pulls no punches, and neither does Ray, as he goes to work finding out who did this, why, and how he can send a public message to Meister about this unwarranted act of violence.

The staccato nature of the sentences reflects Ray's character, he is someone who lets his actions do the talking and does not waste his time on pointless conversation. His deeply religious conviction has the reader returning to the title of the novel, it invokes the old Testament vengeful god whose anger is all encompassing and also completely in accordance to the crime committed. It is not the 'turn the other cheek' rhetoric which drives Ray, rather the swift decent of flaming swords to avenge his daughter's beating.

The dual storylines of Ray and Elena run parallel with the police investigation, and invoke the gritty , down to earth realism of a New York set tale which comes engrained with the dirt and hope and stories of this city's residents. Deeply disturbing but also enormously enjoyable , this is my first Ray Cruz novel and I anticipate reading others in the future.

Mr. Meister has a problem. A woman has wronged him and he wants her to pay. He has his underling hire some goons to give her the beating of her life. Not murder, just battery and the promise that this will happen again, maybe to her husband or young daughter if she's not cooperative. Elena Maldonaldo is the target, but she's no wilting daisy. Before getting pounded, she does some pounding of her own just like her father taught her to do: fight hard, fight dirty, do everything you can to mess up the opponent. When it's over she can't really recall the whole thing, but she makes her way to the one safe space, her father's apartment.

That's how ex con and walking Puerto Rican badass Ray Cruz gets involved. He wants the man or men responsible for his daughter's condition, and he's not patient enough to wait for official follow-ups. Especially since Elena turns mute whenever the cops try to get involved. Detective Carver actually turns to Ray to get his help cracking the woman's stony exterior, not that Ray would do such a thing. He wants those responsible for himself, wants to make them suffer.

However, the situation is a tangled one. The road to answers is a lengthy and twisty one, and it will involve Elena's useless husband, a Fed with an agenda named Ramona Esposito, and a scheming underworld replete with bad people willing to take money for a moment's brutality. People wonder why he's back in the game, wonder what's so special about this incident, unknowing that it's a matter of blood. Steven Torres pens a gripping and savage thriller with Vengeance Is Mine.

Some thrillers draw us in, seducing the reader with a promise of dark entertainments. Vengeance Is Mine wakes us up after midnight with a baseball bat to the spine. Novels like this rely on their momentum, and because that quality is difficult to maintain in a lengthy narrative, many efforts in this vein run a little too long and falter under the weight of their own intentions. Steven Torres knows how to keep the pace up, keep the interest alive, and twist the moods to include not only suspense but actual heart as well.

Ray Cruz is a man who loves his child dearly. Part of this is due to having lost a son years before, and part of this is due to a self-destructive streak that he, his wife, and his daughter all seem to share. Prison, it turns out, was a place where Cruz could find the structure to help him overcome much of his yearning for death. It still flares up, of course. However, it is not his defining characteristic. That would be "taking action" for better or worse. Cruz is not the kind of character to sit around, waiting for something to happen. He's like a shark, always on the move, always alert. Sure, he can get jumped same as anyone else, but he's more often the one to jump on folks than to get jumped on. That said, he spends quite a bit of the book with a cast on his arm from one of the few times he gets surprise.

Cruz is a classic antihero, the sort of character we would never really want to know, but one whose adventures we can enjoy reading for vicarious thrills. He's a hell of an equalizer. According to the publisher info, this may well become a series. If it does, we may have a new badass to rival Richard Stark's Parker. Cruz is not the heist mastermind that Parker is, but he's cut from the same mold s that character when he's been wronged.

The writing style is spare, the sentences sanded to the bone and free of fat. These people talk tough and do so convincingly. They walk tough and also do so convincingly. Torrres has a talent for writing bad, bad people and making the world they occupy pulse and seethe with life on the page.

This harder than hardboiled approach won't be to everyone's taste, of course. But fans of classic crime writers like the aforementioned Richard Stark as well as Mickey Spillane or Richard S. Prather will find plenty to enjoy. The storytelling and voice are as assured and engaging as what's found in early Joe R. Lansdale, though not quite as funny as that author can be. It's got the same blend of action, hardboiled cruelty, and heart one finds in the best works of Andrew Vachss.

If any of those authors appeal, then Torres' work is likely to speak to you. He writes a mean line; his chapters are more often broken into smaller scenes than sticking to a single scene for their entire length. It's a cinematic touch, but Torres is too good a writer to work with only the visuals. This work immerses us into the setting the way a mob hitman immerses his target into a bathtub of water, face first and inescapably. The writing may be spare, but the author delivers just enough exquisite detail to let us live for a while in the hellish environments where his story evolves.

Will this become a series? I hope so, though the way the character is now I don't know if he will survive many books in his current configuration. Then again, no one could have expected Richard Stark's Parker to run for as many books as he did. It will be interesting to see what Torres does with the world and character next.

Vengeance Is Mine is not a nice novel, but it's a striking one. A real powerhouse of a piece drenched in mood and a meanspirited noir attitude. A nightmarish ride with plenty of well-defined characters (including a kid!) and well-delineated action. This is one of those thrillers that rolls on up, grabs a pedestrian by the arm and then floors the gas, dragging the reader along for a bumpy ride. Hell of a read.

5 Stars!

I trusted in Flame Tree Press when I requested a copy of Vengeance is Mine by Steven Torres. I knew nothing about the author or the book but I have a lot of faith in Flame Tree Press as almost everything they print is high quality. I sank into the dark New York of this thriller and was not disappointed at all with what I found in its gritty streets.



Someone wanted revenge on Elena Maldonado. It would have been easy to kill her but she was meant to suffer. After being brutally beaten, she barely makes her way to her father’s house. She accepts medical attention but absolutely refuses to say anything about the attack. The men threatened to come after her daughter if she talked and she believed them. What the men did not know, however, is that her father was Ray Cruz. Cruz used to work as hired muscle and had connections on the street. He knows what he must do to protect his daughter, track down the person who had her beaten and kill him, and will stop at nothing to do so.



Cruz begins investigating the attack on his daughter and soon finds himself caught up in web of deceit. Not only are the people in his criminal network involved but it begins to seem as if the police and maybe even the FBI are complicit in what happened as well. Cruz has to filter through information gathered, usually by force, on the streets while being pressured by Detective Carver of the NYPD to let the matter go and let the police handle it. The only thing Cruz knows is that you can trust no one and as the search for answers becomes increasingly more dangerous he knows he can only rely on himself. The truth is out there but it is buried behind several layers of lies. Cruz has to untangle this web in order to save his family.



The first thing that I want to say about his novel is that my faith in Flame Tree Press was completely validated. Vengeance is Mine is a great read. The prose is a bit dense at time and this one takes a little bit of work to get through but it is well worth the time. It is anything but a light read and the atmosphere is gritty and almost oppressive throughout. Torres knows his stuff and the story is believable and the characters really come to life over the course of the story. Even Cruz, who is not the most sympathetic character, comes to life as a fully formed person rather than words on paper. I found myself alternately cheering for him and cringing about his actions. He could be rather brutal at times but I could also understand his motivation and that kept the story moving along even when I was not happy with what was happening. The novel walks along the darkest side of the human condition but it also does provide a light in the dark along the way.



I did not know what to expect when I started Vengeance is Mine and I was very happy that I gave it a chance. The novel was one of the best books I have read in while and another 5-star read this year. I was immediately immersed in the world that Torres creates in the book and never wanted to put it down. It is a bit of a longer novel but it did not feel that way and I did not want it to end. With its believable (if not likable) characters and the redeeming reason behind the action, Torres gives the reader a tour of the darker side of society with a glimmer of hope for the brighter side as well. The novel does take some time and effort to read as there is a lot here to sift through, but it is a rewarding story. It is not even halfway through January but Vengeance is Mine is a strong contender for the best book I will read this year. Highly recommended.



I would like to thank Flame Tree Press and NetGalley for this review copy. Vengeance is Mine is scheduled to be released on February 22, 2022.

Revenge isn't a dish best served cold for Ray Cruise, a tired and slightly world-weary veteran hit man on the hunt for the people responsible for beating his only daughter to a pulp during a very brutal and violent encounter.

Steven Torrence's latest thriller is an adrenaline-fueled journey into violent retribution, a stark and powerful story where greed, corruption and murder brilliantly coalesce into a terrifying game of cat and mouse that becomes at one point a superbly choreographed jig between life and death.

Crooked cops, crooked lawyers, crooked businessmen and lots of witless killers simply run amok along the streets of a Bronx that have become a cold and cheerless stage for blind vengeance & bloody reckonings

Fiendishly plotted with enough twists and turns to keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish, blessed with a terrific cast of roguish and heartless characters and crisply written, this magnificent and terrifying thriller should definitely find the faithful readership it rightly deserves.

Very entertaining and to be really enjoyed without any moderation whatsoever!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Flame Tree Press for this terrific ARC

LOTS of action, bad guys, bad bad guys, and bad good guys. The action never stops, and you’re never quite sure who to trust. Hardly any lulls in the action.

Damn! I don't know about that ending?! Ugh I kind of hate it but I guess I get it! Geez anyway this book was awesome!! Lots of bad guys and the good guys were bad guys too! Lol this book had tons of suspense, lots of action lots of chases ,blood shed all kinds of murder and mayhem!! it had a great who done it too!! I definitely recommend reading this one! Its well worth reading! Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for sharing this book with me!