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Righteous Trash

by Nick Kolakowski

DETAILS:
Series: Jake Halligan, #3
Publisher: Rock & a Hard Place Press
Publication Date: October 23, 2025
Format: eARC
Length: 232 pg.
Read Date: September 24, 2025

What’s Righteous Trash About?

Jake Halligan’s sister, Frankie, has come back to Idaho after a time in Mexico. She wants to start her business again—there’s always a market for guns, right? Especially of the extra-legal variety. But first, she wants to take care of some business for an old friend. With Jake’s help, of course. It’s messy and…well, never mind that.

But before they can really get into that, they find themselves at the scene of the nuttiest (gutsiest?) robbery—that promises to wreck Jake’s life. There’s some involvement with the FBI, some political corruption and cover-ups, and so many people pointing guns at the siblings that it’d be too hard to count.

All in all, a good time.

Action

One thing you expect from a Jake Halligan novel is some good action scenes—and boy howdy, does Kolakowski deliver here. There are some intense—almost cinematic—action scenes here.

But the first big gun fight in particular is the one I want to focus on for just a moment—there are multiple groups, with varying alliances (the exact number is hard to determine in the moment). You need someone like John Woo or Chad Stahelski to bring this to life—you’ve got the bullets, the quips, some stupid and useless deaths, and a couple of good twists. If you haven’t been fully engaged in the novel to that point, you will be after it.

The other action scenes are more grounded. I’m not saying they’re all that realistic, I don’t think (who reads these novels for hyper-realism?). But they seem a little more like what would happen to actual people, not stuntmen, in the situations. Just as compelling, just a little less eye-candy.

Stand By Your Man

One of the more interesting things through this series has been tracking the relationship between Jake and his wife. Or maybe it should be phrased as the relationship between Janine and her husband and sister-in-law’s lifestyle. She’s not comfortable with it (to undersell it), she doesn’t want it anywhere near their daughter, she’s barely tolerant of Frankie at all. And who could blame her for any of that? The number of bullets I want flying anywhere near my spouse is far lower than what Jake sees in the first book—never mind the others. And as for their kid? Forget it.

That’s not to mention how often Janine’s life has been in danger. That alone should drive her away.

Nevertheless, she stands by her man. I’m not sure if she should be admired or pitied, really. Either way, it makes her the kind of character you want to watch, and gives you something to think about in the midst of everything else.

The Missing Sequel?

Back in 2018, the first time I got to ask Kolakowski some questions, he mentioned a sequel to the first Jake Halligan book set in New Orleans. We ended up getting a very different sequel. Now in book three, we get a flashback to an adventure that Jake and Frankie had in The Big Easy.

I don’t know if any of the material he’d prepared for that would-be sequel ended up as that flashback, but it’s fun to think about (and fun to imagine what would happen after it). Obviously, it could just be a coincidence, and he needed a non-Idaho place for the siblings to get into trouble—and New Orleans works well for both of those criteria.

So, what did I think about Righteous Trash?

Again, Kolakowski nails the local geography. I really think I could drive to each location he describes—and for those who aren’t from around these here parts, he describes them in a way that conveys a good feel for the place. The fact that I could give a tour of the series locations to a reader who dropped by is just a bonus. (and I can absolutely see the Idaho political scene function the way he depicts it, although I think that could be easily ported into the other 49, too).

I enjoyed both the change—and utter lack of it—that we see in Frankie. She’s aged a bit, got some perspective (maybe wisdom), and knows what she wants. She’s also enough of a realist to understand what’s possible for her (you might read a little pessimism into that, too—but she’d deny that).

I’m a little worried about our friend Jake, at least where he was at the beginning of the novel. He’s a survivor, and he has Janine and his daughter to worry about, so I assume he’ll find a way to get it done. These novels have taken their toll on him (and everyone else), which I appreciate because these kind of books can gloss over that kind of impact. But, he’s such a nice guy (most of the time), that you hate to see it.

Great action, a clever story, characters that you just can’t get enough of. This is a fast-moving novel that will keep you turning pages longer than you should (plan your sleep accordingly; the adrenaline can only do so much). This is a fun thrill ride that will satisfy fans of the series and probably create some new ones, too. (It is absolutely not necessary to read the earlier novels before this, but you will appreciate some things more if you have.)

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