Say It With Bullets - Richard Powell
Published by the Hard Case Crime imprint, you're virtually guaranteed a rollicking pulp tale, and Say It With Bullets does anything but disappoint. The story focuses on Bill Wayne, formerly of the Army's Air Force in WWII. Four years ago, his former army buddies shot him and left him for dead in China. Now Bill's on a scenic tour through the West to have a little chat with each of them, but somebody's knocking them off as he gets near them, and Bill's almost certain it isn't himself. To complicate matters, the guide to the scenic tour he's using as an alibi for his trip seems to have taken an unhealthy interest in his little vacation. When the bullets start flying and the bodies start piling up, more questions get raised than answers found.
Written with a sharp wit, the third-person narration never devolves into winking at the camera. It only reveals to us what Bill knows, which is fantastically frustrating, as we get a complete sense of the nightmare Bill's willingly swaggered into. Bill, as a main character, is extremely relatable, even for a man bent on hunting down and killing his old friends. The supporting characters, such as the tour guide and the Deputy tracking him down, are richly illustrated and believable, and the dialogue is never seen as a series of questions and answers. Single lines of dialogue give us awesome clues as to what might really be going on, while even the four army buddies are presented as well-rounded people, never just simple targets to eliminate one by one.
The breakneck speed of the prose and the relatively short length (just under 250 pages) means you can finish this one on a relaxed weekend, or a few days commute on the subway. Plus, there's the added bonus of the cover painting by Michael Koelsch, replete with Bill and Holly The Tour Guide pointing a gun off-screen. The design package of this entire imprint calls to mind the awesome pulp mass market paperbacks of yesteryear, and the kitschy tagline above the title, "When It's Time To Say Goodbye..." might make buyers wary, but rest assured, this is a solid story, well told.
Overall Grade: A-
1 comment:
Of course he is relatable. All of us have already come to terms with the fact that we are going to die at each others hands, and he who remains shall rule all of the lands...There can only be one!
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