An author who chooses a criminal as his hero has a problem: how to make him sufficiently sympathetic so the reader will care enough about him to read the book. A villain can be bad to the bone, but the hero has to have some redeeming qualities. I’ve read other books with similar protagonists: petty crooks, robbers, killers, even cold-blooded assassins. In The Two-Minute Rule the author succeeds in redeeming his hero in the best fashion than I’ve ever read.

Max Holman is a career criminal. He started out stealing cars with his buddy Chee as a teenager then graduated to robbing banks as an adult. He got his girlfriend Donna Banik pregnant and pretty much abandoned her and his son Richard Holman without a shred of remorse. He hasn’t seen his son since he was a little boy; the last ten years he’s been doing federal time for bank robbery.

Max knows the two-minute rule: get in, get out of the bank in two minutes or risk the cops arriving in time to arrest you. At his last bank job, Max was ready to make his getaway with the stolen cash, Chee waiting outside at the wheel of the car. But an old man has a heart attack, and no one else in the bank knows CPR. Max is apprehended by FBI agent Katherine Pollard because he stops to save a man’s life.

As a literary device, isn’t that good?

As the story opens, Holman is being released from a halfway house. He’s got a low-level job waiting for him, and he’s got a room in a rundown motel. His one goal is to look up the son he hasn’t seen in years. Donna had written him in prison telling him Richard hadn’t turned out anything like Max – he’s a good man, a policeman.

But before he leaves the halfway house, Holman is told that his son, along with three other uniformed police officers were shot to death the night before. Holman is determined to find out the truth behind Richard’s murder. “ My son is not like me.” He contacts the only person he believes can help him.

Katherine Pollard left the FBI to become a stay-at-home mom for her two sons. Her marriage to another FBI agent disintegrated, and he died before their divorce. Now she’s raising her two sons and barely scraping by. She remembers Holman; she testified on his behalf to help him receive a reduced sentence.

After she receives his letter, Pollard only agrees to check out a few things for Holman. They’re soon sucked into a deeper investigation that seems to point to a criminal conspiracy among cops.

The Two Minute Rule is well plotted with elements of a standard police procedural mystery and plenty of suspense; its dynamite climactic scene will have readers holding their breath. Where the book really excels, however, is in character development. These are flawed characters but ultimately likeable. Max Holman is a low-life who’s pretty much messed up his entire life along with those of his girlfriend and son, but he’s got a core of humanity that is his saving grace.

I strongly recommend this both as a mystery and as a case study for how good writers do it.

--Lesley Dunlap