Review: Awesome.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 11, 2013
Road trip. Geezer noir. Assassin attrition. Combat yoga. Killer soundtrack. Awesome.Beetner takes hard-boiled and really has fun with it, primarily through the protagonist's inner commentary - and it's all pulled off because Lars is just so damn likeable and relatable. It doesn't matter that he's a career assassin, pushing fifty and living in New Mexico and I'm none of those things; underneath it all, he's just a guy. He's got to deal with an arrogant kid less than half his age telling him he can do his job better. He has to deal with the fact that in at least one respect, the kid is right. He has to deal trying to speak the language of a teenage girl. He has to accept that he's not the man he was twenty years ago. He has to adapt to new technology.He also has to deal with a lot of gunplay.  Okay, that's not as relatable, but being readers of hard boiled crime fiction, we're still right there with him. And the hard-boiled elements are all there, in spades; Beetner has written a fast, violent criminal road trip with, yes, assassin attrition and combat yoga.Plus there's that killer soundtrack!