Friday, October 9, 2009

Book Review: Gil Brewer, Wild (1958)



Acceptable, though not memorable. Private detective Lee Baron moves home to Florida to take over his recently deceased father's one-man detective business. Almost immediately he is hired by an old flame, Ivor Hendrix, who has become fearful of her husband. Lee seeks out the husband and instead finds an armless body, and things escalate from there--plot elements include a bank robbery, a thug with a head the size of a watermelon, and Ivor's nymphomaniacal sister. The plot meanders a bit as Lee wanders among a cluster of locales in the Tampa Bay area, trying to figure out what's going on. Characters are a bit thin even for this genre, but Brewer keeps things moving and hopes that you don't notice too much. Worth reading, but not if you haven't read A Killer Is Loose or The Brat or The Red Scarf. Grade: C+

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