Fast Charlie; Trailer Park Parable; Behind

 

I love the Hard Case Crime books. This one was great. 

Charlie Swift is out to get revenge for the murder of his boss, Stan, and their crew by a rival, Beggar. He meets some interesting characters along the way and it had a happy-ish ending for a book of this nature. I watched the movie, too, and it was really good (even if Pierce Bronson is too old to play Charlie--in the book he's 40). They changed a lot, but I still enjoyed it. 

A friend at work who rarely reads was reading this one. The books he's recommended have been pretty good, though, so I gave this one a try. It wasn't bad, but it hit a little too close to home sometimes. 

Tyler (not his real name) and his two brothers grew up with an alcoholic, abusive father. When his dad was sober, he was great and Tyler loved hanging out with him. But things come to a head one Christmas Eve when his dad nearly beats his mom to death and goes to prison. Tyler was able to pull himself up out of this bad situation, join the Air Force, and later have a stable career and get married. So many kids in situations like his end up addicts themselves, so it was great to hear that he escaped it. 

And finally, Bentley Little's latest, "Behind". I really wanted to like it. Little has been on and off over the years, and this one was definitely off. Super disappointing. Just very repetitive and boring. 

Alex sees a house behind his house one day, and it brings back a flood of bad memories about his childhood. He also saw a house behind his house back when he was a kid, and not long after that his parents disappeared, never to be heard from again. 

Throughout the book, the main characters kept saying they didn't know how it was going to end, and I felt like Little felt the same way. So he just ended it. It wasn't ambiguous or anything like that, just "I'm tired of writing it, so it's over, the end".