Amazon.com: A Time of Predators (Otto Penzler Presents): Joe Gores: Books

Review

"Gores is dogged and brilliant."--Donald Westlake

"[Joe Gores] is exceptional." --Playboy

"If Joe Gores isn't in a class of his own, he's about to invent one." --Rocky Mountain News

"Savage."--Saturday Review

"A modern-day Hammett."--Mario Taboada

"Gores is the master of many voices."--Kirkus

"A seasoned master."--Booklist

"A versatile crime writer."--Publishers Weekly

Product Description

Otto Penzler and the Mystery Writers of America Present A Time of Predators by Joe Gores, winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel

The gang was restless, just looking for idle fun. They roughed up a man they thought was a homosexual--but their game got out of hand and their victim was blinded.

It was Paula Halstead's bad luck to witness the attack and catch a glimpse of one of the boys. After they got through with her, she killed herself.

The police have no leads and can't find the culprits. Paula's husband hires a private investigator to do what the police haven't been able to-with no success.

Curt Halstead refuses to give up; he will have his vengeance on the men who raped and tortured his wife, even if it means entering into their world of sex, violence, and murder.

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Product Details

Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Forge Books (February 10, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0765310511
ISBN-13: 978-0765310514
Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #557,029 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
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#10 in Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Authors, A-Z > ( G ) > Gores, Joe

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Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
It was 1970, and something was about to change in the world of mystery fiction. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
something intolerable

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Paula Halstead, Los Feliz, Barbara Anderson, Linda Vista, Harold Rockwell, Professor Halstead, Curt Halstead, Archie Matthews, Monty Worden, San Francisco, Sears Lake, Curtis Halstead, Detective Bureau, Edgewood Drive, Julio Escobar, Rick Dean, San Conrado, Sergeant Worden, Debbie Marsden, Miss Marsden, San Leandro, Floyd Preston, Brewer Street, Coast Highway, Entrada Way

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Citations (learn more)

This book cites 7 books:

Mountain View by Virginia Pinchbeck Anderson on page 135, and page 136
Dead Man by Joe Gores in Front Matter
Come Morning by Joe Gores in Front Matter
Wolf Time by Joe Gores in Front Matter
God Save the Mark: A Novel of Crime and Confusion by Donald E. Westlake in Front Matter

See all 7 books this book cites

11 books cite this book:

Opening Shots, Vol. 2: More Great Mystery and Crime Writers Share Their First Published Stories by Lawrence Block on page 114, and Back Matter
Cons, Scams, and Grifts (Dka File Novel) by Joe Gores in Front Matter (1), and Front Matter (2)
Peregrine (Otto Penzler Presents--) by William Bayer in Front Matter
Grandmaster (Otto Penzler Presents...) by Warren Murphy in Front Matter
Grandmaster (Otto Penzler Presents) by Warren Murphy in Front Matter

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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews

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4.5 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Welcome Return from 1969, January 22, 2006

By	Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

The punks can barely be told apart, except for the one who's enormously fat that kids tease him and call him a can of Crisco, and then there's the obligatory punk hero who's so smart he could debate Nietzsche to a draw. The others are pretty nondescript, one of them is allegedly Hispanic but you couldn't prove it by me. These punks go gay bashing and blind a man right in front of Paula Halstead, the beautiful wife of our professor hero. Paula is spotted by the brilliant punk and then becomes a target.

Editor Otto Penzler says that Gores' novel is fascinating in that the street language used by the punks is pretty clean, that today's widespread obscenity hadn't yet infiltrated to street gangs. The characters use a lot of vulgar euphemisms, but the worst they actually say is "so and so has a hard on against you," which if you believe Penzler would have been shocking in the 1960s. The novel is really all about sexual politics and the way in which punks commit rape to silence women.

The first victim, after being raped, kills herself for the shame and the stain leave her unable to face living. Another victim, a young girl of 18 or so, is treated by psychiatrists after being raped many times on a filthy mattress. However her best prognosis is that her life is basically over, and the next man who becomes her lover will receive a "hatpin in the chest." As though rape has made her into a psychopath.

This would make a good, strong movie if the right director took over the reins, and found a way to distinguish the young villains from one another.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Minor Crime Classic, November 10, 2005

By	arneas (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This was Joe Gores' first published book (he had previously worked writing biographies of generals for the military -- ! -- and as a PI in S.F. for 12 years), but he was 38 when it came out, which may explain its antipathy to youth.

It's in the same genre as "Death Wish", "Straw Dogs", "Last House on the Left", etc. A professor who has a secret past as an SAS commando seeks revenge from some punks for the death of his wife. He's somewhat ambivalent about his wife in the first place, which robs the revenge tale of some of its urgency but makes it perhaps more realistic. What makes the book a bit dated is its somewhat bizarre sexual politics that feel very much of the era, or maybe even slightly earlier. Still, it's a fast, fun, suspenseful read. Crime fiction completists won't want to miss it, and everybody else will enjoy it too. I liked it slightly less than "Interface," which Gores wrote a couple of years later.

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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clockwork Orange meets Hammett, February 26, 2005

By	Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

Thirty-six years old Paula Halstead met Rockwell on the bus because both of them were holding brochures to the opening of the San Francisco Spring Opera. At the Greyhound Station, she waits for her spouse Curt to arrive while Rockwell walks towards a car. A gang of four drunken teens on a lark viciously attack the blond. Paula pleads with them to stop, but they don't until Curt arrives. They flee the scene, but leave behind a blinded victim; Paula pukes up her guts at the horrific sight.

Rick Dean realizes Paula could identify him and his associates. They learn she is the wife of Los Feliz University anthropology Professor Curtis Halstead. The quartet plan to insure she says nothing so they obtain her home address and pay a visit. They viciously beat her, threaten her, and rape her. When they leave, unable to cope she slashes her wrists.

The cops fail him so Curt knows he must find, torture, and execute the four punks who destroyed his life. He hires a PI who meets with no success either. Curt concludes he must descend to the underbelly of society to confront the killers on their terms, which he obsessively is determined to do.

This is a reprint of an award winning 1969 tale that holds up quite nicely though feels like a historical. The story line is character driven whether it is Rick, Curt or Paula, but within an action-packed dark plot. The then rookie Joe Gores showcased a pessimistic San Franciscan society with his no SF elements version of Clockwork Orange meets Hammett.

Harriet Klausner

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Time Enough
Joe Gores'first novel is a winner. It grabbed the Edgar Award for Best First Novel of 1970. It is a very hard hitting, eye opening story of the transformation of a middle aged... Read more

Published 2 months ago by Ronald T. Roseborough

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