A man goes a five-city spree of vengenance in Richard Powell’s post-war revenge novel SAY IT WITH BULLETS, a 1953 paperback now finding new life thanks to Hard Case Crime.
Bill Wayne is out to look up some old war buddies, five friends who “had a habit of doing things behind his back, like shooting at it.” Having been the recipient of two bullets and as many close calls with death, Bill signs up to take a Treasure Trip tour of the western U.S., with several of the stops coinciding with the stomping grounds of his ex-pals (one of whom has the only-in-the-’50s name of Cappy). He wants to find out who tried to kill him, and then dish out the appropriate amount of payback.
However, someone keeps beating him to it. And the only thing worse than being denied your opportunity to dole out justice is having the rap pinned on you. With a blonde tour guide tagging along and a hunt for half a million dollars underway, Bill’s simple vacation snowballs into a staggering amount of work.
All of which adds up to an immense amount of pleasure for you. Powell writes the best kind of bygone-era crime: the kind with a sense of humor as strong as its sense of style. In the remarkable structure of Bill’s stop-and-shoot itinerary, Powell finds a framework that allows his characters to go through the ringer in a variety of real-life locales. Though it threatens to derail into a rom com during a third-act car ride between Bill and the tour guide, the action kicks in again to save it, building to a cliffside climax that’s positively Hitchcockian.
Powell’s story holds in store as many good tough-guy lines as it does sucker punches, which means BULLETS will satisfy the author’s old fans and pick up some new ones. Welcome to the club. –Rod Lott
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