Hard Man [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Pearce has a reputation as a hard man with good reason. Living in Portobello, Edinburgh's seaside town, Pearce is inclined to keep to himself since the violent death of his mother soon after that of his sister. After doing ten years for killing the junkie responsible for his sister's death, Pearce's only companion is Hilda, a male three-legged Dandie Dinmont named after the hard man's mother. With only the occasional conversation with his deceased mum, Pearce is adjusting nicely to his new home when he is accosted by Flash and Rog Baxter, whose plan is to intimidate him into accepting a job. Wrong. Pearce turns the tables on the brothers, reducing them to sniveling pulp by the time their father, Jacob, arrives.

Jacob puts the deal to Pearce. The Baxter's want him to protect sixteen-year-old May from her husband, Wallace, who kicked her out when he found out she was pregnant with another man's child. Pearce's first instinct is to refuse in spite of the money, considering the Baxter's riotously dysfunctional manner of conducting business, but when Hilda is done in by Wallace ("Said the dog dropped like a stone when he hit the water."), Pearce takes it very personally, prepared to bring down May's martial arts-trained husband. Carefully planning his assault on the man who took Hilda, Pearce goes into action. Unfortunately, Wallace is more than a match and Pearce is soon in dire straights with an adversary every bit as tough.

What begins as combat between Pearce and Wallace escalates into a wild melee of unpredictable violence and mayhem, guns blasting, tires screeching and the blade of a knife slicing home. Guthrie provides a wild ride that involves the Baxter family, Pearce Wallace and a guy named Jesus in a blood-soaked, frequently acerbic, tortured imbroglio that is an unpredictable page-turner. The novel speaks for itself, a hard man up against an indifferent world with nothing to lose but the three-legged dog that is his best friend. Using the harsh dialog of the streets, Hard Man pulls no punches, yet manages to humanize a most bizarre assortment of buffoons and loners, loonies and losers, Pearce left wondering what strange trick of fate has landed him in this predicament, a joyride from start to finish. Luan Gaines/2007.

If you like your crime fiction unrepentantly dark, you should try Allan Guthrie, the fastest-rising name in the Scottish subgenre affectionately known as "tartan noir." Hopefully you've already read his explosive debut Two-Way Split (from great indie crime publisher PointBlank Press, which Guthrie later joined as editor) or his multi-award-nominated second novel Kiss Her Goodbye (from the amazing Hard Case Crime). Both take place within the same circle of society in Edinburgh, but follow different protagonists' stories.

In the UK, calling someone a hard man is akin to calling them a tough guy in the US ("Come on, hard man, show me what you've got," for example), and Hard Man, Guthrie's third novel and his first appearance in hardcover, is a direct follow-up to Two-Way Split. In that novel, we met Gordon Pearce, the "hero" (if you will) of the book -- which merely means he was one of the least despicable characters -- who went to prison because of his alternate use for a screwdriver in revenge for his sister's death. Soon after his release, his mother was killed and he sought revenge for that, too.

Now, just a few months later, Jacob Baxter and his sons Roger and Flash have sought Pearce out to help with their own family problems (he comes highly recommended by Jacob's nephew Cooper, a familiar name in this neighborhood). Their sister, sixteen-year-old May, cheated on her husband Wallace with another man and got pregnant. Wallace subsequently threw her out, but has been unable to leave her alone since, leading the Baxters to believe both she and the unborn baby are in danger (nothing near the danger the other fellow is in, but still...).

They want Pearce to protect her, but Pearce refuses to take the job, so the Baxters decide to force his hand. What nobody told them was that you never mess with another man's dog, especially not one he has named after his dead mother.

Despite a lot of really great scenes (including a crucifixion that goes on for pages!), Hard Man was a mild disappointment. It lacked the pure readability of Guthrie's previous work, and the humor felt forced in the beginning. Also, the story started off slow. Guthrie's characters (especially Pearce) think things through a good deal before they act, and these character digressions add depth, but they also drag down the pace. A crime novel needs to keep its pace swift.

Unfortunately, Hard Man also lacks any compelling characters that might have made up for this. Guthrie has created a succession of types with a few quirks to set them apart, but no one ever really jumps off the page, since they're primarily there to further the plot. This dearth of any interesting personalities made the book a struggle to finish: simply put, I couldn't bring myself to care what happened to anyone with the exception of Hilda the dog. I think the main problem is, despite all the thinking they do, everyone makes such stupid decisions that I had to roll my eyes (another hindrance to reading) as they committed blunder after blunder.

Even Pearce seemed to lack the basic intelligence necessary for him to have developed his stellar reputation. A single conversation would have cleared up any misunderstandings nicely and avoided the frustration and duress he experiences. If he didn't have the same name, I would not have guessed this was the same fellow who was such an engaging feature of Two-Way Split.

On the plus side, Guthrie's storytelling skill continues to improve. Once the action begins in full, it does not let up, and Guthrie certainly knows how to express intense pain on the page (something that is usually lacking even in horror novels). The humor is incorporated much more smoothly as the story progresses, and his plot shows cleverness and originality and is generally what kept me reading even through the down spots; I wondered what he would come up with next. I still wonder what he will come up with next because, despite my criticisms of Hard Man, Allan Guthrie remains one of the better crime writers working today, and I have no doubt that he will impress me once again.

I first discovered Allan's work a bit over a year ago and quickly tracked down everything I could find. I read (or re-read) one every few months so as to not run out before the next book/novella is published. Hard Man is my most recent read of Allan's and it didn't disappoint. If you like tight, lean prose and excellent dialogue, Allan's work is right up your alley. And if you enjoy gritty violence mixed with an acerbic wit and black comedy, give Hard Man a read. I also highly recommend Slammer, which was on my 2010 top 10 list of best reads.