Goodreads | Eric_W Welch (Forreston, IL)'s review of Strip

Goodreads | Eric_W Welch (Forreston, IL)'s review of Strip:


Absolutely delightful stand-alone Perry.  It begins well, as Carver, suspected by Manco Kapak, a local mobster of having held him up and stealing a week's worth of receipts (he didn't), is hiding out in the cab of a 250-foot crane at a construction site. Feeling this is probably the safest place he can be so as not to be found, there's a great scene where Carver uses the crane rather innovatively to take out a couple of the goons' Hummers when they find him, his hiding place being not as secure as he had hoped.

In the meantime, LAPD Lt. Nick Slosser, is trying to hold his personal life (both of them - he loves marriage and family so much he has two of them) together and keep the LA peace at a reasonable level, while Spence, Kapak's bodyguard would appear to be the only one with half a brain.  Kapak, not realizing a good deal when it's offered, refuses Carver's olive branch and proof he wasn't the robber, so Carver decides to teach Kapak a lesson.

A third thread involves Jeff, a neer-do-well who happens to be the robber being mistaken for Carver, and he hooks up with Carrie, a girl who discovers she loves carrying a .45 around and using it.  It's no spoiler to reveal that if you surmised that the threads get woven together, you'd be correct.

Perry's books, while occasionally violent and sexual, are never explicitly so (unless, of course, I have become too jaded by reading the newspaper,) and there is an undercurrent of humor that never fails to bring a smile.  For example: " the sheet fell below what appeared to be non-augmented, but beyond reproach, breasts..."  Not to mention some social commentary: The men were loudmouthed and pushy, trying to be intimidating when they didn't get what they wanted, but most of them had never felt a serious punch or heard a shot fired. The women were self-obsessed and lazy. They were greedy for money and wanted to dress like movie stars. They neglected their children, hired immigrant women to raise them, but wanted other adults to refer to them as 'moms.' Seeing them grow up had been like watching a disease arrive and take over a herd of cattle. All he could do was hope that they died off before the disease spread further.

Read impeccably by one of my favorite narrators, Michael Kramer. Buy, borrow, or beg a copy.


'via Blog this'