Ever been to a drag race?
A low slung racer stripped to the bone rolls up to the line.
The sound it makes isn't the high-pitched hum of a Porsche;
it's a slow, uneven rumble. With the spark advanced so far
that it's bucking against itself, the dragster sits there and
shakes. It's an awful, powerful, fearsome sound, full of
savage anger and the promise of death. A light descends a
pole and there's goosebumps on your forearms and hair raised
on the back of your neck and you hold your breath and the
light hits the bottom and the massive engine jerks sideways
from the torque and fire belches from the straight-out
exhaust stacks and the huge back tires smoke blue and gray
and the front wheels come off the ground and the dragster
lurchs forward.
Al Guthrie's KISS HER GOODBYE is like a drag race in print.
From the first page it rumbles dangerously, and the tension
builds with each page. In this fast-paced novel Guthrie tells
the story of a group of psychopathic criminals terrorizing
Edinburgh with a series of daring daytime robberies, shooting
first and collecting the money later. The police are
clueless, but the psychos push the wrong buttons, and now a
powerful and deadly avenging angel stalks them.
Guthrie's writing is lean and his characters mean, but he
maintains a sense of compassion which avoids the pitfall of
universal toughness that so often robs a hardboiled novel of
both its humanity and its credibility. Guthrie's got soul,
and so do his characters. He makes you give a damn. Along
with a wicked cast of characters and a steamrolling plot,
Guthrie's dialogue is high-octane, precise, and believable.
Guthrie, like Hemingway, is a master at revealing his
characters through subtle nuances in their dialogue. What
remains unsaid is as important as what is said.
The world of noir is eternally dark and depressing, but
through some of the finest runs a grim thread of humor. In
such harsh conditions humor lends a sense of perspective, a
sad, worldly smile at this mess we call the human condition.
Without a sense of humor noir can lean towards a morose
morbidity bordering on dreary melodrama. Charles Willeford
understood this. So did Derek Raymond. And so does Al
Guthrie. In the bleakest situation, Guthrie can always find
humor, and this adds a balance to the novel that is elegant
and refreshing.
Although Guthrie sticks close to the plot, there are short,
deeply felt sections that evoke the setting of Edinburgh and
the people.
miker
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