BOOK REVIEW - Easy Death

Pulp crime novels are a genre I have to say I have certain affection for.

I like the grittiness.

I like the tales of crime, or the seedier side of things.

So when I came across the Hard Case Crime series I was drawn in rather quickly. The line, now near 120 books, is a mix of reprints of books printed decades ago, and new releases, all in the pulp crime vein.

Easy Death by Daniel Boyd is book 117 in the series, and is a brand new release.

"Daniel Boyd" is the pseudonym of a veteran police officer who served for nearly thirty years in a department in central Ohio, including four years as Chief of Police. EASY DEATH is his first crime novel. His only previous novel, ‘NADA, was nominated for the Spur Award by the Western Writers of America.

So Boyd has pedigree in terms of writing.

Now I will say Easy Death was as most pulp crime tales, a nice quick read, but this one had a late book twist I admit I did not see coming, and that is one of the sweetest things that can happen to a reader, to be surprised by the story.

As for the crime, I suspect Boyd pulled it off so well because he found the core kernels of the story in real life.

“This could be true for all I know.

A few years back I was cleaning out some old newspapers from the back room of a dead business – one of those mom-and-pop places that stays there for years, more from force of habit than for profit involved.  The newspapers were all from some small town I never heard of, and they dated back to when every little burg had its own newspaper, a radio station, two movie houses and a big marble Carnegie Library.

All of these papers were from right after Christmas of 1951, and they featured articles about the big blizzard of that year, the one that dumped a ton of snow all across the Northeast U.S., some places more than three feet in a single day. The paper said it hadn’t kept Santa from coming, and the local businesses were doing all right, but Bud Sweeny’s Used Cars was closed till New Year’s in observance of the holidays.

There was also an article about putting up a monument to honor a park ranger who was killed in the line of duty – the editor seemed to think it was a great notion.

And down at the bottom of the page was a short piece that said the police had issued warrants for two local men in the armored car robbery of almost a week ago. There were pictures of them that looked like mug shots, one of them African American (but that’s not what the paper called him, not back in 1951) and the other white, and the headline said SALT-and-PEPPER TEAM SOUGHT IN ROBBERY.

Further down in the stack of papers was another paper, from a few months later, with the same picture and a headline, PAIR FOUND DEAD.

Just thought I’d mention it,” wrote Boyd as way of introduction.

Ah to draw on the thread of real stories and weave a great take of mystery. It is an art, and Boyd does it about as well as you can in terms of pulp crime.

As for the book, well the back cover details, “It takes guts and good luck to pull off an armored car robbery, and Walter and Eddie have both. But getting the money and getting away with it are two different things, especially with a blizzard coming down, the cops in hot pursuit, and a double-crossing gambler and a sadistic park ranger threatening to turn this white Christmas blood red ...”

And that will entice the pulp crime fans nicely. Trust me when I say Boyd has put out a stunning first effort in the genre. It is a book that had me from chapter one, and required steady nightly readings until it was done.

If you are curious, and have not yet tried a Hard Case Crime title, then Easy Death is a great one to try.

Check out www.hardcasecrime.com