From Publishers Weekly
Acerbic wit leavens over-the-top violence in Scottish author Guthrie's third "tartan noir" (after Edgar-finalist Kiss Her Goodbye). Jacob Baxter's married 16-year-old daughter, May, is pregnant with another man's baby; May's 26-year-old husband, Wallace, is a karate expert and in a seething jealous rage. To protect May, Jacob, along with grown sons Rog and Flash, confront Wallace, and none of the Baxters emerges unscathed. Their next idea is to enlist the aid of a local "hard man," and they reach out to loner ex-con Pearce (who appeared in Guthrie's first novel, Two-Way Split). After inflicting still more injuries on the Baxter clan, Pearce refuses to help, and the Baxters continue to wage a decidedly inept war against Wallace. The violence is nonstop and intense (Wallace crucifies a man-literally), but Guthrie makes the macabre funny. When Pearce finally gets involved, the story goes off the rails, but Guthrie contrives to make the hapless, hopeless Baxters into something more than mere cartoons, and their bungled blood feud is grotesquely fascinating.
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From Booklist
Tough guy is an inexact analogue to the British term
hard man; the former is usually used wryly while the latter carries more respect. Edinburgh writer Guthrie's third novel, however, manages to Americanize the Briticism a bit. After taking a beating, the men of the Baxter family--dad Jacob and sons Roger and Flash--look for help protecting the pregnant May, Roger and Flash's sister, from her psychopathic husband, Wallace. Ex-con Pearce isn't interested in babysitting, but a little subterfuge--Flash kidnaps Pearce's beloved dog, Hilda, and pins the deed on Wallace--brings him into the fray. Thus escalates a cartoonish melee of bumbling brutality and backstabbing, along with a contest, of sorts, to determine who is the real hard man. It's none of the Baxters, but is it Pearce? Wallace? Or the guy named Jesus locked up in Wallace's basement? Guthrie's blithe sense of humor and inventive approach to the worst-case scenario make this a recommendation for fans of the bumbling-criminal genre. Compared to his superior
Kiss Her Goodbye (2005), however, it's a bit over the top.
Keir GraffCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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