Wed 10 Dec 2014
DANIEL BOYD – Easy Death. Hard Case Crime, trade paperback, November 2014.
I’m going to repeat the opening paragraph of the comments I wrote about the same author’s very first book, ’Nada, published back in 2010, to wit: I have a semi-formal, strictly unwritten and not always enforced policy against reviewing books written by authors I know personally. But that shouldn’t stop me from telling you about them, now should it? No, I didn’t think so.
And so. The author’s name on the title page is Daniel Boyd, but that’s a pen name of one of the regular contributors to this blog’s pages. I don’t think it’s a secret, so I don’t think anyone will mind my telling you, including Dan Stumpf, the man behind the moniker and whose reviews of movies, westerns and crime novels just like this one you often see here.
So this isn’t a review, not quite, but if I start out by telling you, as a regular visitor to this blog — and even if you’re not — that if you haven’t gone out and bought this book already, you should, and that’s a fact.
The story takes place in a ten hour period following an armored car heist in December 1951, just before Christmas. I kind of assumed that the small town where most of the action takes place in and around was in Ohio. I don’t know where I could have gotten that idea, since a quick skim through right now didn’t turn up anything I could find, one way or the other. In fact it may have been somewhere in the Northeastern portion of the country, but what I did find was a reference to a Carnegie Library.
Well, they had one of those in my own home town, clear up in the northern extremes of Michigan’s lower peninsula, but I guess it could be anyplace where a blizzard might dump up to three feet of snow.
Which causes all kinds of havoc, including, and especially so, to the pair of robbers and their boss, a gent by the name of Bud Sweeney, the owner of a local used car lot. Of the two fellows who actually holds up the armored car, one is black, the other white, and the relationship between the two men — they are friends — is as much of the story as what it is that goes wrong.
Or if I could expand on that, the story is about people, big shots in town and the ones just scraping by, the new lady park ranger — the first woman ever on the job — doctors who love their work and others who maybe don’t, and more.
But don’t get me wrong. It’s about an armored car heist gone bad, as I said up above, or this book wouldn’t have been published by Hard Case Crime. The book is only 240 pages, just over Gold Medal length, and it can be read in only two or three hours, once you get going on it.
And you should. My opinion, anyway.
December 11th, 2014 at 8:54 am
I absolutely agree. I really liked this one a lot, even more than Dan’s first. And I enjoyed his sly little historical tie-in too.
December 11th, 2014 at 10:16 am
Yes, there is a lot of slyness going on in this book. It’s one you can read very quickly, but you have to pay close attention, too.
December 11th, 2014 at 10:55 am
I’ve already told Dan how much I enjoyed this book. I recommend it to one and all who enjoy a tough, twisty crime story.
December 11th, 2014 at 5:02 pm
I picked up a copy recently and look forward to reading it in late December
December 11th, 2014 at 6:30 pm
I plan on ordering my copy when I am at the new bookstore in town tomorrow.
December 11th, 2014 at 7:01 pm
The local Barnes and Noble doesn’t carry the book. Except for the bestseller thrillers that I don’t want anyway, I think there are a lot of books by lesser known authors that I miss because someone in charge doesn’t think they will sell. Either they don’t obtain any, or only one or two, and if they sell out before I spot it, that’s it.
I did spot a copy in Skylight Books, an independent book store in Los Feliz CA last month while I was visiting there.
Dan’s in good company there on the shelf, between Lawrence Block, Gil Brewer, James M. Cain, and a couple of other authors whose names you might recognize:
December 11th, 2014 at 7:44 pm
I’ll report back tomorrow. The nearest Barnes & Noble is more than 25 miles away. I go to an independent bookstore in downtown Northfield, MN, that just opened a few weeks ago. They bought out another bookstore that had been here for about 10 years. If it’s in the warehouse they can get it for me, if not … I just got an email from them that a book I ordered last week had come in.
December 11th, 2014 at 9:51 pm
I’m looking for it, but it will be next month before I can get to the nearest books store and the postage would cost almost as much as the book.
But I can guess that anything by Dan would be worth reading.
And anyone who uses one of Carter Brown’s detectives as a pseudonym has to be down my alley.
Speaking of books, much less prestigiously, my latest, TALES OF THE SHADOWMEN 11 is out this month, pre orders at Amazon or Black Coats Press. Just my annual contribution to the anthology, but this year it features an encounter between Arsene Lupin and Simon Templar, aged 14.
Dan, I will be buying the book and look forward to reading it.
December 12th, 2014 at 5:22 pm
The local bookstore was happy to order Dan’s book for me and said that it should not take too long.
December 13th, 2014 at 12:00 pm
I enjoyed reading this a lot and thought it was much too short.
December 13th, 2014 at 2:11 pm
John
That may be one of the best things you can say about a book.
December 19th, 2014 at 5:05 pm
And now I have a copy of Dan’s book and can add it to my “to be read” stack. He showed us a copy in Columbus last August.
December 22nd, 2014 at 3:26 pm
I found EASY DEATH to be a smooth read and finished it early this morning. The final chapter set 30 years after the events in the rest of the book is not to be missed.
January 15th, 2016 at 9:37 pm
Hello,
Just recently received this book from my brother as a Christmas present, and just totally enjoyed it! I’m a big pulp fiction fan and Hardcase fan, and I would give this a top rating!
Very likable characters and a clever, riveting story line.
This book would make a great movie! I hope that Dan Stumpf writes another crime novel soon–can’t wait!