Customer Reviews

Dust Devils

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Dust Devils is a hardboiled masterpiece. Reasoner's novel is just as good, if not better, than the best works by Donald Westlake or Elmore Leonard. The writing is tight. The story is action packed, and the twists are jaw dropping. The latter element is the hardest one to pull off, but Reasoner comes up with story elements that will flatten even the most jaded of crime novel fans. This is a book that is not to be missed.

As a novelist, Mr. Reasoner has been working a long time and written a couple of hundred novels, most under other names. He should do more with his real name. This is a fine example of "country noir"(I dislike the current flavor, red-neck noir). The two main leads, Toby and Dana, have levels of secrets that keep popping up all the way to the end of the book. It kept my interest from start to finish as any good book should. Short and a quick read, it's one of finest I've found recently. Worth a look. Try it.

Never saw the end coming. The action was fast paced and the characters easy to get into. Enjoyed this. But for people who read reviews, I normally read H.Coben, Lee Child, M. Connelly, and like mystery/action/ thrillers. Most reviews I read don't tell me what the reader likes so it's still a shot in the dark.
I read this in two days, not my normal 1-2 week pace. It was fun and not part of a character series.
My final comment- Never trust a woman with a gun.

Country noir seems like a good name for this because it has the feel of the Texas countryside all the way through, even though some of the book takes place in Dallas. Like the best noir works, this one is a fast read with many twists and turns. The opening twist totally caught me off guard, and the ending one was one of the best I've ever seen in this genre. I didn't see it coming at all. "Dust Devils" rates a five just for the twists, but it's also very well written with a great sense of pacing and a lot of action. Highly recommended.

I had high expectations for this book. Having read Texas Wind earlier this year I was looking forward to another overlooked, underappreciated gem from Reasoner. Unfortunately, I was terribly disappointed.

To be fair, Dust Devils was a different different type of book than Texas Wind. TW was a hard boiled private eye story reminiscent of Chandler and Macdonald and was very well done. DD falls into the that category of dark noir that was best carved out by Thompson and Woolrich: the psychopath disguised as a normal person living among us. However, Reasoner's psychopaths aren't set up for us nearly as well. The characters are thin and when it comes time for them to reveal themselves as the self-indulgent amoral animals they truly are its like firing blanks, there's a loud bang but no punch in the gut. Perhaps the greatest failure is the eye-rolling dialogue between the bank-robbing femme fatale Dana and her young drifting protege Toby. In order to go along with twists and sudden eruptions of violence one has to believe in the characters.

There was plenty of grit, plot twists and surprizes. The raw, dusty setting was terrific and the action moved swiftly. I just couldn't buy these characters. To me they just weren't authentic and that undermined the entire story.

I don't know who came up with the term "redneck noir," but it's an apt one when applied to this southern thrillride.

Dust Devils starts off with a kind of strangers-in-the-night romance, as a young man Toby arrives on the doorstep of a lonely woman named Grace's farm looking for work. A bit wary at first, she hires him and a friendship begins, which quickly heats up. Then, the story takes one wild turn after another. I'm kind of hesitant to even discuss plot details beyond the first thirty pages, because a couple of jaw-droppers happen surprisingly early in this book.

Okay, here's one: After the two of them have sex for the first time, he snoops through her dresser drawers while she's sleeping and finds a gun. It's a bit out of character, but he finds more guns hidden about the house, and when Toby's about to confront her about it two gunmen arrive and reveal that she isn't who she says she is. Her names's not even Grace. She's really a bank robber, estranged from her cohorts who all believe she's sitting on the last big score they stole and double-crossed them to get it.

The book could almost be confused for a Harlequin romance in those first thirty pages or so, but it's all prelude. It's that slow, rattling ride to the top of the roller coaster before you take the first big plunge into a crazy cross-country journey. It's not all adrenaline-pumping action though, and some of what's there felt a bit tinny and form-fitted. Things happened at times a little too smoothly, even though the two are in constant danger. It felt, I suppose, like the stakes weren't as high as they should have been given their circumstances. Still, the action builds upon itself, as does the dynamic between the two as they are dragged deeper and deeper into criminal activity. And the ending is a powder keg.

There is one moment that irks me in the book, where Toby commits murder. He at least plays party to it, and given the way he was presented in the book up to that point, and the almost detached way in which he reacts to it, seemed really out of place. Albeit, the story mends itself before it's all over, so I really shouldn't gripe on that detail.

I was impressed with James' turn at the wheel when he wrote The Blood Mesa (Dead Man #5) for Lee Goldberg's and William Rabkin's Dead Man series (recently picked up for a publishing deal with Amazon's imprint, if I'm not mistaken), and Dust Devils shows why he was sought out to join the crew of authors on that series. I wasn't blown away by it, but it was a fun, quick read with as many twists as a sidewinder. And it's definitely worth checking out on Kindle right now, since it's being sold on the cheap.

Two people, each with their own secrets to hide, come together in the Texas countryside. A modern day Bonnie and Clyde. This is a heist and double cross story in the tradition of the old Gold Medal variety. If you like a story with lots of twists and turns and don't need too much character development this is a great read. Sure there are a few times when the story stretches the bounds of credulity but that's part of the beauty of it. Pulp fiction at it's best!

Dana is mean and she's hot, combine that with her talent for killing and she's as deadly as they get. A fast paced, enjoyable, short read, that will have you shocked at the final twist at the end.