Plots With Guns (Hardcover)

~ Anthony Neil Smith (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The short-lived e-zine from which this anthology takes its title specialized in firearm-fueled crime fiction. Smith has culled 24 of its best, and though a few seem stray shots, most hit their targets as bulls-eyes. Eddie Muller's "Wanda Wilcox Is Trapped" is a steamy slice of period Hollywood sleaze in which a gun factors into a declining starlet's rendezvous with her tawdry fate. In Jim Nisbet's "Brian's Story," a pistol concealed in a car serves as a touchstone for a beautifully narrated memory tale of a white-trash kid's revenge against the pusher who sold his older brother a fatal dose of heroin. The contemplative approach of these stories is counterbalanced by Kevin James Miller's "Stealing Klatzman's Diary," a morbidly amusing caper with a Shakespearean body count in which two small-time thieves play crime kingpins and federal investigators against one another. Deceptively simple tales in which the gunplay is just part of a larger moral drama include Robert Skinner's "Spanish Luck" and Sean Doolittle's "Worth." At their best, these stories demonstrate the breadth and creative reach of the modern hard-boiled tale. (Nov.)
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From Booklist

In the recent noir/hard-boiled/pulp resurgence, there are dozens of writers toiling in a genre with dim financial prospects, resurrecting a form other writers were once driven to out of financial need. The irony is almost . . . noir. Smith has selected 19 stories from his now-archived Web site, Plots with Guns, and 5 by writers associated with publisher Dennis McMillan. You can almost smell the quid pro quo. The Plots with Guns roster includes Eddie Muller ("Wanda Wilcox is 'Trapped!'"), Charlie Stella ("Young Tommy Burns"), and Sean Doolittle ("Worth"). The McMillan roster includes Jim Nisbet ("Brian's Story") and Kent Anderson ("Elvis Hitler"). Generally speaking, there's a mismatch (and an age difference) between the two groups; the former is writing more for the genre while the latter is informed by it. Most anthologies are uneven, but it's a bit jarring to find the masterful Michael Connelly one page after the middling Jason Starr. Still, some of the young guys get it exactly right, like Victor Gischler in "X's for Eyes," a perfect blend of contemporary retro paranoiac comedy--with a gun. Weird but worthwhile. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Dennis Mcmillan Pubns (September 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0939767511
• ISBN-13: 978-0939767519
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: No customer reviews yet. Be the first.
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,374,984 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)