Tue 19 Oct 2010
Reviewed by Allen J. Hubin: MAX BYRD – Target of Opportunity.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[4] Comments
Allen J. Hubin
MAX BYRD – Target of Opportunity. Bantam: hardcover, August 1988; reprint paperback, November 1991.
The first by this author in hardcover after several paperback private eye tales, starts in Lake Tahoe. There San Francisco homicide inspector Gilman is vacationing with his best friend and brother-in-law, former Washington lawyer, Donald Kerwin.
They stop for groceries at a 7-11 Store, where a ski-masked man shotguns Kerwin to death and leaves Gilman with an awful case of tinnitus. The Tahoe cops blow the investigation and the killer walks free.
Kerwin’s widow comes unglued at the news, and follows the killer to his Boston home with her own form of bloody justice in mind. Gilman chases after her, desperately hoping to stop her. Kerwin’s shooting was apparently random, but the scot-free killer comes from a wealthy family, had no apparent reason to be robbing a convenience store, and has an estranged father on the Harvard faculty.
What could all this possibly have to do with OSS activities in wartime France? It could easily be fatal to Gilman to find out. Fresh if perhaps fanciful plotting, capable storytelling. Interesting detail.
October 22nd, 2010 at 11:31 am
I don’t mind a little bit of fanciful plotting if it takes things away from the “oh, this tired old plot again” thing, and this sounds pretty good if it’s well written, something the review doesn’t reveal. So?
October 22nd, 2010 at 11:53 am
I’ve not read this one, Richard, but I have read a couple of Byrd’s “Mike Haller” private eye novels, and they were quite good. It’s been too long since I read them to feel comfortable in saying more myself, so what I’ll do is reprint Haller’s entry from the Thrilling Detective website:
https://www.thrillingdetective.com/haller_m.html
Mike Haller
Created by Max Byrd
San Francisco gumshoe MIKE HALLER appeared in three very fine PBO’s in the early eighties, won a Shamus, garnered a nomination for another, and vanished. Too bad. The three books make an impressive trilogy, very much in the Chandler/Macdonald vein, but infused with their own sly wit and a more contemporary edge. And Mike even has a girlfriend, the smart and lovely Dinah Farrell, who works as a staff psychiatrist at Washington General hospital, training medical students and seeing patients.
In addition to the PI books he wrote in the 80’s — California Thriller (1981) the first, was the one that won a Shamus for Best Paperback PI Novel in 1982, and Finders Weepers was nominated two years later — author Byrd has written thrillers, and is now writing historical fiction, Jefferson being a recent book. He doesn’t depend on his writing for his livlehood, so he generally writes what and when he wants. Unfortunately, it looks like he doesn’t want to write anymore Mike Haller books, which is indeed a loss.
NOVELS
* California Thriller (1981)
* Fly Away, Jill (1981)
* Finders Weepers (1983)
Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
October 22nd, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Max Byrd’s Mike Haller books, California Thriller, Fly Away, Jill, and Finders Weepers should be better known.
October 22nd, 2010 at 4:16 pm
I doubt that I can find the review I’m sure I wrote of one of them, but I’ll look for it. Now would be the time to post it, that’s for sure.