Title: When The Dragon Roars
Authors: Nesly Clerge
Publisher: Clerge Books, LLC
ASIN: B01IU9RCCG
Pages: 323
Genre: Crime Fiction

Reviewed by: Joe Kilgore

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When The Dragon Roars is the middle book of a trilogy by author Nesly Clerge. The reader need not be familiar with the first novel to understand and appreciate this one. Some catching up with the previous storyline is necessary, but it’s more or less provided as things unfold in this second installment.

All of the action takes place within the walls of a maximum-security prison. The protagonist, Starks, is incarcerated for killing a man who had been his wife’s lover—one of many as it turns out. The killing was in self-defense, but a lie regarding the weapon has landed Starks in this hell on earth. While the aforementioned is necessary for the plot and placement, it’s really just the stripe in the middle of the road that Clerge takes you down in this psychologically intense thriller.

Clerge’s novel is first and foremost about survival. It certainly concerns itself with physical survival in an environment where every waking hour is consumed with potential danger from other inmates, but it’s also about surviving mentally and the choices that must be made to do so. As this book opens, Starks’ body is already marked with scars from earlier life-and-death encounters, but he chooses to make a further statement by shaving his head and having a huge dragon tattoo run from the back of his hand up the entirety of his arm. In so doing, he is proclaiming his emergence from the man he was on the outside, to the warrior he has become on the inside. He is also using his new look as a daily motivation. He knows that if he doesn’t rise to the top of the food chain in this jungle, he will most certainly be consumed by it

As the plot unspools, Starks uses courage and cunning to methodically put together his own crew. A crew formidable enough to withstand potential violence from other prison gangs. Simultaneously, he directs people and events outside the prison walls to do what he can to aid his children and keep his philandering wife from squandering everything he managed to build before his raging emotions landed him behind bars.

Clerge’s story explores the darkness that surrounds a man’s psyche when he’s forced to constantly juggle sensibility and savagery. Is it possible to maintain a degree of honor and humanity when deceit and depravity are his constant companions? Can he secure his life without losing his soul?

With tight, crisp prose and realistic dialogue, the author keeps the pace of his tome moving at highway speed. His characters are finely etched both physically and emotionally. Clerge knows the story he wants to tell, and he tells it in a way that is both involving and entertaining. Plus, in the best tradition of trilogies, he ties up most, but not all the loose ends—creating anticipation for the final installment.