Customer Reviews

Bullets

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
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You wouldn't expect a book about a female assassin who leaves more bodies in her wake than Typhoid Mary to be lighthearted and funny, but that's the perfect way to describe Steve Brewer's Bullets.

Lily Marsden is one cold woman, but she's not without charm, especially in the eyes of Joe Riley, a former Chicago cop determined to track her down and bring her to justice.

Brewer has created a passel of unique and hilarious characters and thrown them into a page-turning plot that had me laughing out loud despite a hail of bullets.

Reviewed by David Montgomery, Chicago Sun-Times

Steve Brewer really should be among the giants of crime fiction alongside Elmore Leonard and Donald Westlake. I love this book for it's dueling narratives, turbo storytelling and sly humor. Brewer's series work is better known but his standalones are my favorites. Also check out Bank Job and Boost.
This is a great read!

Lily Marsden, a professional andextremely successful stone cold killer, is hired to kill rich businessman Max Vernon. She picks him up while he's spending some of his cash gambling in Las Vegas' Tropical Bay casino resort. It's a clean, well-planned hit which she carries out with style and panache, as usual, and she heads off home for a well-earned rest. She's covered her trail well but, unfortunately for her, as well as the cops, this time there are a few extra people on her trail - the owner of the Tropical Bay is not very happy about his upscale resort being used as the venue for a hit, Max Vernon's two brothers (who share the family trait of just the one large eyebrow) want to avenge their brother's death, and ex-cop Joe Riley is after Lily because of an earlier hit which cost him his job.

Muddy the waters a little with two inept gamblers who are determined that Joe's going to give them back the money he took off them in a poker game, a dodgy lawyer with a taste for Hostess Twinkies, and a wonderful supporting cast of weirdos, misfits and no-hopers. Set it all in larger than life Las Vegas, stir well and wait for the bullets to fly. Sit back and prepare to be entertained as Steve Brewer outdoes himself with this fast paced, funny book, packed with sparkling dialogue and witty one-liners. You're never quite sure exactly who you should be rooting for in this wonderfully entertaining caper. If this doesn't get made into a movie I'll eat my Las Vegas showgirl outfit (and, let me tell you, that's a helluva lot of sequins to swallow).

Are humorous and romantic elements out of place when the main character is a cold-blooded killer? Is it incongruous when supporting characters are both comical and chilling? Not when Steve Brewer is the author.

I'm a big fan of Steve's Bubba Mabry series (starting with "Lonely Street"), but the author himself has written that this is his favorite out of the seventeen novels he's published. As always, the story is king with Mr. Brewer: His writing has rightly been compared to that of Elmore Leonard, and you won't find him trying to impress you with "stupid writer tricks" at the expense of the story.

I should mention that I know Steve personally, but being as impartial as I'm capable, I still think this book is a must-read for fans of the crime/mystery genre. Steve is a big guy who used to live in our town, but he moved away recently, so I no longer have to worry about him punching me should I write a negative review.

Just kidding. Steve is about as nice a guy as they come, and extraordinarily patient with newbie poker players.

But granted, I'd hate to make an enemy of a guy who spends so much time thinking of ways to kill off his characters.

Lily Marsden is very good at what she does. She has managed to kill and kill again and her signature style is to leave no clues or trace of her presence. Her clients pay well for her work but she is starting to get tired of the hunt and killing. Her latest target, Max Vernon, gave her no problems and she was happy to leave him dead in his room at the Tropical Bay in Las Vegas.

But Max had two brothers, Hi and Norm. Two brothers with anger and resources who aren't going to wait for the clueless cops to figure it out. They have a very good idea why Max was taken out and plan to start rolling up Vegas for the name of the shooter. They aren't waiting and neither is Ken Staley, the owner of the Tropical Bay, who already had enough problems to deal with. He doesn't think the cops can find the killer either and he knows he can't have the publicity of a trial if the cops do find her. Lily made a mistake this time and both the brothers and Staley quickly know who she is and begin hunting her.

While the brothers and Ken want her dead, former officer Joe Wiley knows the execution of Max Vernon to be her work and needs her alive. The Vegas cops aren't interested in his help so his long running solo chase of her continues. She is the key to his clearing his severally damaged reputation in Chicago. He has no intention of backing off and his efforts are constantly interfered with by two crazy gamblers who don't take losing well and don't know when to quit in anything.

This novel quickly becomes a fast fun read as the point of view constantly shifts through a large ensemble cast of characters. Many of the characters are off the wall funny, while others manage to get off an occasionally funny line or two to break up the serious sections of the book. There is a certain inevitability to the read as it becomes clear that everything and everyone will collide in such a way at the end to border on the absurd.

Despite all the humor, the core mystery is complicated and rather intense. The book fully engages the reader and keeps one steadily turning the pages. While occasional bordering on the madcap, the tone overall is relatively serious and a novel well worth reading and enjoying.

Kevin R. Tipple (c) 2005
(43 and still a real person)

Mr. Brewer is not trying to write literature in this novel, nor indeed anything the slightest bit serious. He has instead given free reign to his comic impulses to create a fun, light, madcap farce involving an assassination in Las Vegas, and the crazy, off-kilter, and wacky people that get swept up into the action. This is meant as pure comedy, and reminds me of those 1950 TV sit-coms like Gomer Pyle in its feel and mood. It's a simple light-hearted farce and good for filling in a few moments, but this is not going to be one you remember for the rest of your life. After reading it I can't say I really thought that much of it; the book is short and the chapters even shorter (most going for two or three pages only). If you in the mood something lighter than helium and crammed with a surplus of comic relief than this will fit your bill......but it's hard to create a good book when all the cast are comic relief and there is no foil for them. This is pure Bridget does Assasination.