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Tuesday, September 05, 2017

Review: The Prone Gunman by Jean-Patrick Manchette

Martin Terrier wants out. Having worked as a paid assassin for "the company" run by an obscure American, Mr. Cox, he decides to return to his native town where he had left Anne Freux who had promised him to wait for him ten years before while he sought his fortune. Now everything has gone to shit; Cox doesn't want him to quit as he has a big job coming, his financial advisor has committed suicide after losing all his clients money, and worst of all they killed and dismembered his cat. Anne has married Felix in the meantime ("I only drink whiskey-sours because they taste like vomit. “If you systematically drink something that tastes like vomit,” continued Félix, “you won’t be confused when you end up vomiting.” ) who is killed in a shoot-out forcing Martin/Christian to go on the run.

 
The ending is satisfactorily unpredictable and unexpected. Perhaps it was just me, but the translation felt a bit off in spots. There was apparently a movie tie-in with a Sean Penn thriller entitled The Gunman that I watched but with which I could find zero resemblance.

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