From Publishers Weekly
In McDonald's fun, deft debut, set mostly in 1957, Sen. Prescott Bush has sent out the call: bring me the head of Pancho Villa, the late Mexican revolutionary. Aging writer Hector Mason Lassiter, author of pulp novels like
The Land of Fear and Dread and
Border Town, gets caught in the crossfire between Mexican nationalists and frat boys out to place Villa's head in Yale's Skull and Bones Society trophy case. Along the road to hell, Lassiter picks up a young love interest while dropping in on Orson Welles and Marlene Dietrich on the set of
Touch of Evil, but that doesn't slow down the action (it's a tricky thing, firing for flesh wounds with a machine gun at close range). Reminiscent of James Crumley's Milo Milodragovich PI novels but Crumley lite, this slick caper novel touches chords of myth, history, loss and redemption just enough so you can hear echoes faintly under the gunfire.
(Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
It's 1957, and novelist Hec Lassiter—who followed Black Jack Pershing into Mexico to hunt Pancho Villa, befriended Hemingway, worked with Dashiell Hammett, bedded Marlene Dietrich, and helped Orson Welles script his films—is feeling his age. But when an old pal sets Villa's head on the table of a cantina in the Mexican desert, Hec is up for another adventure: delivering the head to Senator Prescott Bush (father of 41, grandfather of 43) so that it can be used in secret ceremonies at Yale's Skull and Bones Society. What follows is an exuberantly over-the-top romp conflating real events with legends and filled with murderous federales, murderous old Villistas, additional decapitations, mercenaries, unhinged Yale frat boys, CIA spooks (also Yalies), and enough gratuitous violence to fill several Steven Seagal films. There's even a cameo from a callow, foul-mouthed Skull and Bones initiate named "George W." Much of Head Games reads like a picaresque adventure, but McDonald's portraits of Welles, Dietrich, and Pancho Villa are beguiling and seem knowing. This one is simply great fun! Gaughan, Thomas
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Craig McDonald "mcdonaldent" sent the following posts to customers who purchased Head Games