Dead Pawn

by Richard E. Peck

Bob Wince, an Albuquerque building contractor, is sentenced to the New Mexico State Penitentiary for a crime he didn't commit. He is mysteriously granted an early release and declares he is fed up with accidents, or fate, running his life. Associating himself with the minor crooks and major scammers who gather at his father's restaurant, --Dimmie's Half-Off, -- Wince vows to re-establish his life and exact revenge on those who set him up originally...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0826332633
• ISBN13: 9780826332639
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Length: 247 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Entertaining!

Dead Pawn is full of interesting characters. In addition to the characters, Richard Peck has painted such a lush portrait of New Mexico that I feel as though I've just returned from a vacation. More than once I was rooting for Bob Wince. Well done!!!

Worthy of the Best of Elmore Leonard

Dead Pawn is New Mexico author Richard E. Peck's initial entry into crime fiction, in fact, into the genre of the caper novel. Not a light-hearted one like Donald Westlake writes, but more reminiscent of Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty, Rum Punch, and many others). Don't be fooled by the title. It has nothing to do with chess, but refers to the most valuable pieces of Indian jewelry, unclaimed pawned items. But Dead Pawn can be taken to refer ominously to the fate that may await Peck's protagonist. We meet Bob Wince as he's being given an early release from prison after having been framed for fraud. He has made enemies in the slammer and now he returns to confront enemies in the mean streets of Albuquerque. He's trying to go straight--or is he? Not everything is what it seems, nor are all the characters sympathetic to Bob and glad to see him home again. We gradually meet a cross section of Duke City criminals and Peck's multiple POV technique allows the reader to keep one step ahead of the dangers piling up on Wince. Or are we one step step ahead? Stick with this novel and you'll learn things--about prison, about the restaurant business, about adobe construction techniques, about an ingenious purse snatching scheme that leads to burglary, and especially about Southwest silver and turquoise jewelry. In short, surprises galore await you and, like Leonard, Peck hands you bits and pieces of information that will keep you guessing right up until the end who will be left standing when the smoke and dust clear. Better get your copy of Dead Pawn soon. I have it on good authority that Peck is hard at work on a sequel.