Editorial review
Gold Man
By Lori Hodgkinson
Dark, atmospheric, and steeped in intrigue, Gold Man transforms a mining empire into a battleground for revenge and reckoning.
Reviewed by CANREADS
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Gold Man is a haunting thriller where old wrongs refuse to be forgotten. As a powerful mining empire begins to fracture, revenge takes on a life of its own.
Lori Hodgkinson’s debut novel, Gold Man, centres on Harry Howitzer, the CEO of Sceptre Gold, a respected British Columbia mining company passed down through generations of his family. When salmon are poisoned in a river near Sceptre’s mine and Harry narrowly survives a plane crash, his carefully controlled life descends into chaos. Between a powerful Indigenous spirit haunting him from the afterlife and the influential Liu family seeking revenge against the Howitzers for a decades-old crime, every revelation drives the Howitzer dynasty closer to ruin. Can Harry outmanoeuvre everyone determined to take down the Howitzer name, or will his family’s legacy finally crumble under the ever-mounting pressure? A gripping collision of corporate betrayal, supernatural menace, and generational revenge, Gold Man explores power, greed, and the price of legacy.
Hodgkinson delivers a shocking ending that casts everything before it in a new light. Each character’s arc is compelling to follow as ambition, desperation, and the pursuit of success transform them. In Gold Man, every ounce of power carries a human cost. As patriarchs of their respective families, Harry Howitzer and Zi Liu contain their rage until it bursts at the seams, revealing the damage people can inflict when pushed to extremes. Through these characters, Hodgkinson exposes how greed and corruption can spread through families, businesses, and communities until the consequences become fatal. The shifting perspectives and interwoven family histories require readers’ close attention, particularly as the novel moves among its corporate, supernatural, and historical threads. That attention is rewarded as the mysteries gradually accumulate and the storylines converge in a powerful conclusion.
Within the pages of Gold Man, Hodgkinson brings British Columbia to life in all its beauty and complexity. Through evocative references to the landscape’s natural beauty, the Canadian West Coast setting comes alive under Hodgkinson’s pen. More than a backdrop, the location becomes a living, breathing character in its own right. The setting also becomes a source of reflection: how has Vancouver changed over time, for better and for worse? Who has benefitted or suffered as a result? Like gold buried beneath the earth, deeper questions of legacy, exploitation, and belonging linger beneath the novel’s surface.
Dark, atmospheric, and steeped in intrigue, Gold Man transforms a mining empire into a battleground for revenge and reckoning. Readers who enjoyed the multi-perspective examination of humanity in Shari Lapena’s The Couple Next Door will find Gold Man difficult to put down. When push comes to shove, will the Howitzer name bend—or finally break?
—CANREADS BOOK REVIEW