Kiss Her Goodbye (Hard Case Crime) [Mass Market Paperback]

Allan Guthrie (Author)

Book Description

Series: Hard Case Crime | Publication Date: March 2005

When people in the city want to borrow money, they go to Cooper. When they don’t pay it back, they get a visit from Joe Hope.

But now Joe’s got problems of his own. His teenage daughter is found dead, an apparent suicide. Then the police arrest him for murder.  But for once in his life, Joe’s innocent – and with help from his underworld associates, he sets out to find the person responsible for framing him and deliver his own brutal form of justice.

A powerful urban crime story set on the mean streets of Edinburgh, Kiss Her Goodbye marks Allan Guthrie’s emergence as a major new voice in thriller writing.

--This text refers to an alternate Mass Market Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Scottish author Guthrie's second novel (after Two-Way Split) lives up to Hard Case's reputation for gritty noir thrillers that pull no punches; as with other books in the series, it can be difficult to find a single likable character. Joe Hope supplies strong-arm for the thuggish Cooper, an Edinburgh loan shark. The two have just come in from a night of breaking bones with baseball bats when Joe learns that his beloved daughter, Gemma, has committed suicide. His anger immediately turns to wife Ruth's cousin Adam, who runs a writer's retreat, to which Gemma moved years earlier. Joe resented seeing his daughter leave home and charged Adam with protecting her. But when Joe goes to exact vengeance on Adam, he finds himself arrested for murder--Ruth's murder. Joe and Adam become unlikely allies as an ugly frameup begins to emerge. Dark, possibly incestuous, secrets haunt the family's past; Adam's revelation of Gemma's diary sheds some light on them, but other secrets remain to be told before the inevitable, brutal showdown. This violent tale contains the sort of coarse language and emotional roughness that fans of this mystery line have come to expect.
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About the Author

Allan Guthrie’s first novel, Two-Way Split, was shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger Award and his short stories have appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies. He is also the creator of the Noir Originals website and commissioning editor for both Point Blank Press and the Pulp Originals line of e-books. Guthrie lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, on whose mean streets his books are set. --This text refers to an alternate Mass Market Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 223 pages
• Publisher: Hard Case Crime (March 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0843953551
• ISBN-13: 978-0843953558
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,345,722 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born on Orkney, a small island group off the north coast of Scotland. I went to school in Kirkwall, where my primary five teacher allowed me to write during art classes, given my woeful lack of talent for visual art. I was, however, not too bad a musician, playing piano and bassoon to a half-decent standard. I became a founder member of the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland when I was twelve, and was whisked off to music school in Manchester as a fourteen-year-old.

After leaving school, I attended university in Aberdeen, where my plan to support my studies by playing piano in a posh restaurant took a nosedive when I was sacked on my second night because my hair was too long. After a year, I left Aberdeen, degreeless, and moved to Edinburgh.

Having lots of spare time on my hands, I taught myself how to program computers and spent the following twelve years working in IT. It was good while it lasted, but I started to feel the pinch and found a part-time job in a bookshop, where I was so happy I would have worked for free. For a while, at least!

Before long, I was employed full-time in the book trade, and over the nine years that followed I worked in various jobs, from stockroom supervisor to IT trainer, moving between exotic locales such as Brussels, Cork and Stirling, before giving up my day job in 2006 to work as a writer, editor and literary agent.

I'd married in 2000 and it was my wife, Donna, who was instrumental in encouraging me to take my writing seriously. After being short-listed for the CWA Debut Dagger for a book called Blithe Psychopaths in 2001 (renamed Two-way Split for later release), I started to think she might have a point. Three years and hundreds of rejection slips later, I wasn't so sure!

Eventually Two-way Split and Kiss Her Goodbye were picked up (within weeks of one another, oddly enough) by two independent small US presses. In 2006 Kiss Her Goodbye was nominated for an MWA Edgar Award, an Anthony Award and a Mystery Ink Gumshoe Award. Two-Way Split went on to win the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year in 2007.

Since then I've published another three novels, most recently, Slammer, which describes the descent into hell of a young prison officer. I've also published three novellas, the most recent being Bye Bye Baby, a police thriller and a Kindle top ten bestseller in the UK.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Kiss Her Goodbye" because she will die!, February 23, 2005

By 

Kevin Tipple (Plano, Texas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Kiss Her Goodbye (Hard Case Crime) (Mass Market Paperback)

For Joe Hope, life in Edinburgh, Scotland isn't easy. He does not particularly like violence but inflicting violence and pain on others is his life's work. Well known for his ability to wield a baseball bat with great effectiveness, Joe Hope does his work on behalf of Cooper. When folks can't or won't pay back the money they owe, Cooper, who has been his friend and employer for years, has Joe help with the payment process. They will pay up-one way or the other.

In fact, the day Joe found out his only daughter, Gemma, was dead he was at Cooper's having just finished a session with a debtor. It was bad enough that Gemma apparently killed herself by overdosing on pills. What made it worse was the fact that Joe had trusted Adam Wright, a distant cousin as well as owner of some sort of writing colony near Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands to keep her safe. He failed and failed miserably. His daughter wanted to be a poet and now she was dead. Joe's wife, Ruth, had said all along this was bad idea and she had reason to hate Adam's guts. Now, she blames Joe in a series of violent heated arguments and Joe blames Adam. Now that she has died, Joe intends to follow through on his promise to Adam as Adam has a lot to answer for.

Before he can get to Adam, he is arrested for murder. Not in the death of his daughter, but for the murder of his wife. There is no doubt it was murder since she was found in the trunk of Joe's car at the airport and her body had clearly been beaten repeatedly with a baseball bat. As evidence against him mounts and Joe, with some help goes on the run, he must find a way not only to clear his name but to also bring justice to those who framed him so well.

This is a violent, intense story that spins a dark tale from the very first page. Violence is heavy theme, almost to the point of being a major character throughout the work. With very page, violence lashes out or sits coiled and ready to strike as Joe lives a nightmare. A nightmare that is skillfully depicted, as Joe seems to inch steadily closer to losing his mind, as he is overwhelmed with pain and rage. His suffering comes through in stark and vivid detail as the work steadily and engrossingly moves forward exploring the thin veneer of civility that covers us all. This intense well written mystery featuring a wide and deep cast of characters and a complex situation is a worthy offering in the noir field and well worth your time.


Book Facts:

Kiss Her Goodbye
By Allan Guthrie
Hard Case Crime
Published by Dorchester Publishing Co, Inc.
www.hardcasecrime.com
2005
ISBN # 0-8439-5355-1
ARC-Scheduled Publication 03/07/05

This entire review previously appeared online at The Readersroom.

Kevin R. Tipple © 2005

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intense, imaginative ... and Scottish!, January 12, 2005

By 

Craig Clarke "Living After Midnight: Hard and... (New England) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Kiss Her Goodbye (Hard Case Crime) (Mass Market Paperback)

I had always thought of noir fiction as being a purely American thing, inspired as it was by mid- and post-war disillusionment and the consequences thereafter. However, crime happens everywhere and, if nothing else, Trainspotting proved that the Scots can get just as nuts as Americans -- not that that's necessarily a good thing. Part of a recent trend so widespread it has its own name ("tartan noir"), Kiss Her Goodbye by Allan Guthrie is a portrait of the other side of the ocean, and shows just how similar the responses of humans are given specific circumstances.

Joe Hope is an enforcer (not unlike Nolan in Two for the Money); his friend Cooper loans people money and, if it is not collected, brings Joe with him -- and Joe's baseball bat, an odd accessory for Edinburgh -- to offer some incentive in the form of broken bones. (If more motivation is needed, hitman Park is at the ready.)

When word is received of the suicide of his daughter, Gemma, Joe immediately flies to visit her cousin Adam in Orkney, with whom she was staying, to deliver his particular brand of blame. Instead, he is greeted by the local police, there to arrest him for the murder of his own wife, Ruth (the evidence is circumstantial but damning).

Caught in a presumably impossible situation, and still in the process of grieving his losses, Joe then conspires -- along with his lawyer and hooker girlfriend, Tina -- to discover what really happened, and why someone would want to frame him. Meanwhile, Adam isn't being very helpful because he has Gemma's diary, which contains information that could ruin everything.

Guthrie (Two-Way Split) is a fiend with his pen, and he's not just "taking the piss," either (to quote his main character). Not content to follow a formulaic narrative flow, he keeps the suspense up throughout Kiss Her Goodbye, leaving the important answers for the final ten pages. And he doesn't waste time on closure: after a literal head-cracker of an ending and two pages of wrap-up, it's over.

Considering how Guthrie keeps us guessing throughout Kiss Her Goodbye, his ending isn't as inventive as it could have been; it's just a little too pat after the intensity and imagination of what came before. To be fair, though, it does arise organically from the characters' expected behaviors and, after being sent through the wringer for 200 pages, an easy ending is a bit of a relief.

Joe Hope is a fascinating character with some intriguing flaws (including one I never would have expected, although I suspect Freud would have a field day with it); in fact, all of the characters are fully realized -- except perhaps Ruth, but she is really more of a plot catalyst than a necessary character. Kiss Her Goodbye is a welcome addition to the Hard Case Crime canon -- and comes with another terrific cover from Chuck Pyle (Grifter's Game). It's got enough violence and pathos to satisfy even the most jaded crime reader, and it offers solid insight into the realization that everybody is crazy, no matter where you live.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scottish Noir at its finest, May 11, 2005

By 

CEB (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kiss Her Goodbye (Hard Case Crime) (Mass Market Paperback)

Joe Hope, enforcer for Edinburgh money lender Cooper (no first name), prides himself on never having taken a life. With a baseball bat as his weapon of choice, he walks a fine line between inflicting pain and meting out death. Now, in close but seemingly unrelated incidents, Joe has lost two people in his life and finds himself the only suspect in a murder investigation. There to help discover the truth behind the murder (and who is trying to frame Joe) is his long-time "friend", Tina (a prostitute by trade), Ronald Brewer, a young, baby-faced lawyer, and Adam Wright, a relative of his wife and friend to his daughter. On the other side of the fence is DS Monkman, one of Orkney's finest.

Heavy on both characterization and plot, this second book by Allan Guthrie (Two-Way Split) is not for the squeamish. The subject matter is dark, with intense violence and gutter language. The climax, with a twist in the last few pages, however, makes this an outstanding read!