Review: Solid and fast-paced novella
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 24, 2012
Two of the best crime fiction writers of this generation, Gischler and Smith deliver a solid, fast-paced novella that mostly lives up to everything you'd expect from such a pairing. Z.Z. DelPresto is a P.I. who is, frankly, not very good at his job--hired to keep tabs on a wealthy wife, he almost immediately falls into bed with the wife's sexy but under-age daughter, and when the girl winds up murdered DelPresto is the prime suspect. In a mad scramble to clear his name and find the real killer, DelPresto gets the crap beat out of him a few times, almost accidentally uncovers deeper secrets, and generally explodes whatever expectations you might have about the P.I. hero. This is a re-release on Kindle of a novella Gischler and Smith wrote back in '01, and you can see inklings of the things both writers would later use to greater effect--which is to say: as good as this novella is, both writers are far, far better now than they were then. Still, this is a very solid piece of work, with a breakneck pace, some real laugh-out-loud moments, and great characters.