I kicked off eighties month with the English translation of
The Prone Gunman by Jean-Patrick Machette. It features the
hitman Martin Terrier and offers a slanted take on two common
themes: the criminal required to do one more job before
leaving the life for good, and the working class guy eaning
his fortune in hopes of returning to his hometown and winning
back his high school sweetheart.
I read this book immediately after finishing James Sallis's
spy novel Death Will Have Your Eyes and the two provide great
counterpoits. Manchette's book has Terrier as the existential
hero and provides simply a straightforward account of what
Terrier does with almost no information on Terrier's
thoughts. Sallis's first person narrative is the complete
opposite. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but the two
books were fun to read back to back and when 90s month rolls
around, I will definitely have to read Sallis's Lew Griffin
books.
For now I've moved on to Knotts and Crosses, the first of the
Inspector Rebus series. I've always wanted to get into this
series, but have never been able to, which I hope is because
I've never started at the beginning and have simply made
half-hearted stabs at books further down the line.
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