Kiss Her Goodbye
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A Scottish thug needs help clearing his name when he's accused of killing his daughter in this hard-boiled mystery by the author of Two-Way Split.
When people in Edinburgh need to borrow money, they go to Cooper. When they don't pay it back, they get a visit from Joe Hope. But now, Joe's got troubles of his own. His teenage daughter's been found dead, an apparent suicide. Then the police arrest him for murder. But, for once, Joe is innocent. With help from Scotland's hardest men—and one woman—he sets out to discover who has framed him and to deliver his own brutal brand of justice.
Praise for Kiss Her Goodbye
"A tough and fresh take on the classic hard-boiled tale...vivid, smart and stylish." —San Francisco Chronicle
"Guthrie writes with an urgency, energy, cynical realism and mastery of casual violence that is rarely encountered in British crime writing." —The Times (UK)
"A page-turning countdown to [a] violent explosion . . . a throwback to pulp fiction's heyday." —Giant Magazine
"The writing is tight, the story as poised and precisely plotted as the finest of Ed McBain's procedural gems." —The Scotsman (UK
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Scottish author Guthrie's second novel (after Two-Way Split) lives up to Hard Case's reputation for gritty noir thrillers that pull no punches; as with other books in the series, it can be difficult to find a single likable character. Joe Hope supplies strong-arm for the thuggish Cooper, an Edinburgh loan shark. The two have just come in from a night of breaking bones with baseball bats when Joe learns that his beloved daughter, Gemma, has committed suicide. His anger immediately turns to wife Ruth's cousin Adam, who runs a writer's retreat, to which Gemma moved years earlier. Joe resented seeing his daughter leave home and charged Adam with protecting her. But when Joe goes to exact vengeance on Adam, he finds himself arrested for murder Ruth's murder. Joe and Adam become unlikely allies as an ugly frameup begins to emerge. Dark, possibly incestuous, secrets haunt the family's past; Adam's revelation of Gemma's diary sheds some light on them, but other secrets remain to be told before the inevitable, brutal showdown. This violent tale contains the sort of coarse language and emotional roughness that fans of this mystery line have come to expect. Forecasts:Praise from Ken Bruen, Ian Rankin, Ed Gorman and Jason Starr for Two-Way Split (shortlisted for a CWA Debut Dagger) plus a major ad and promo campaign bode well for sales.
