Crime Min#2: Re

by Ian Barclay

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446327840
• ISBN13: 9780446327848
• Release Date: January 1985
• Publisher: Warner Books (NY)
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Great book!

I see you can buy this book for one penny through this website. A good deal. This book is one of the sleepers of all time. No one has even bothered to review it here, but it's definitely a page turner. Yes, it's about 20 years old, out of print, and has to do with the Cold War era. There's much about post-war Germany, but everything is just taut with excitement and tension. This author knows how to paint the characters, and he does everyone, the protagonist (a hired killer), his victims, even the hit man's uncle, a shadowy abettor who lives on a farm in Maryland. Barclay's writing reminded me a little of Frederick Forsythe, succinct, to the point, the perfect balance between moving the plot and maintaining the suspense. And something many crime novels lack: a believable and rational ending. The book is not quite a romance, it won't warm the cockles of your heart. Barclay does raw sex quite well, and what's maybe unique or at least unusual, he does same sex well. This comes about when Dartley, our hero, has to find a man who looks like him to take his place for a while. I guess he figured the best way was to find a gay man, and the adventure is very amusing. Dartley is almost more European than American, compared to, for example, Lawrence Block's "Hit Man." He seems to be kind of Barclay's idea of what a tough American should be. In Barclay's mind, which he imparts to us, Dartley is a perfectly normal psychopath, well, if there could be such a thing. He kills without second thought, and does so carefully, always considering his own survival. Still, he's a psychopath. Well, he has to be, doesn't he? Here's a fellow whose so-called collateral damage runs to young lovers (but not children, at least not in this book). So I urge you, if you like the idea of following a psychopathic killer into the darkest dens of iniquity, from Germany to West Virginia, spend the penny and get this book. It will make you think! Diximus.