Kill Clock (Most Wanted) (Paperback)

by Allan Guthrie (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Barrington Stoke Ltd (August 23, 2007)
• ISBN-10: 1842994999
• ISBN-13: 978-1842994993
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #952,928 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fast and furious, January 26, 2008

By	Craig Clarke (New England) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

I started my copy of Kill Clock the morning after I received it in the mail and read it from cover to cover in 45 minutes! This is one hot little Scotch bonnet of a novella: short, sharp, and shocking. (Though maybe not as shocking as that scene in Hard Man.)

All of Guthrie's great attributes are on full display here, with none of the drawbacks that made Hard Man a disappointment for me. (Yeah, Pearce is still pretty dumb sometimes, but he's smart in all the right ways.)

Gordon Pearce (from Hard Man and Two-Way Split) is back once again. Kill Clock takes place a few years after the events in Hard Man, with Pearce out for the evening with his three-legged dog, Hilda. It looks like another case of "teach a prick a lesson" and then head home, but his ex-girlfriend Julie shows up with her two kids and a sob story: she needs 20,000 by midnight or she's toast.

Kill Clock was written for "adult reluctant readers" (with a reading age of 8+) and the simplicity of the text is pure fire. At 150 pages of large text -- with no complex conversations or descriptive digressions -- keeping the story moving is the key here, and Guthrie follows through with a tight little tale that takes an old suspense plot and polishes it up bright and shiny. And yet there's room for Guthrie to insert little bits of insight on how some people change when you haven't seen them in a long time, and some people stay exactly the same. This extra spice wasn't necessary for Kill Clock to kick serious arse, but it boosts this little tale into a fine addition to any dark crime fan's library.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Make sure you read Two-Way Split first!, May 25, 2008

By	Jeff "Jeff" (Northern California) - See all my reviews

Kill Clock is a short novella follow-on to Allan Guthrie's excellent debut novel, Two-Way Split. You have to read the prequel first, otherwise many of the setups will make little sense to you. Moreover, if you read in the reverse order, your enjoyment of the longer book will be ruined by several spoilers.

Kill Clock moves faster than Two Way Split. It's like those old merry go rounds we tried to jump on as kids: you'd better to be ready to get yanked and pulled right away! Heck, it moves faster than almost any book that in my last year of reading.

There's Guthrie's traditional hard people and hard violence. As usual, the local color is excellent and the dialog is razor sharp.

This book ended in a satisfactory manner for me (can't say some of it's characters would feel the same way), but it ended far sooner than I would have liked. I'm eager awaiting Guthrie's next work.