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CRYSTAL METH COWBOYS
by John Knoerle
Blue Steel Press, May 2003
204 pages
$12.95
ISBN: 0974319902


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Wes Lyedecker, having just graduated from college in New England with a degree in police science, has taken a rookie police job in a nondescript part of California, in a town small enough for him to "make a difference." He's assigned to an experienced partner who can teach him the ropes, and Officer Bell's about as vulgar and cynical as possible.

That sounds like a weary cliche from not only police procedurals but also movies, TV, and comic books, and it is. This book is slathered with cliches of all sorts. Consider the concept of the well-educated, prim and proper New Englander dedicated to bringing civilization to the unruly West, like schoolmarms or preachers hired for gold-mining camps or frontier towns. That's here. So are a corrupt political establishment playing poker, challenged by an underdog do-gooder, an experienced older woman seducing a youth who talks to his mom on the phone a lot, and lots more.

Fortunately for me, the beginning of this book is raunchily hilarious. (Think of, for instance, the first chapter of Brookmyre's Quite Ugly One Morning.) Otherwise, I wouldn't have read far enough to discover that the author's put these cliches here on purpose, to tweak them, stretch them beyond credible limits, deflate them, and otherwise play around with all the tried-and-trues. I would have put this book aside as too primitive and unsophisticated for my taste when in fact it's so clever it's nearly over my head.

Don't make that mistake. You'd miss an interesting experimental book with a snap-too sharp a counterexpectation to be a twist-of an ending.

Also do not make the mistake of passing it on to a prissy friend. It is vulgar and crude, and it could use help from a developmental editor to shape it better.

Reviewed by Joy Matkowski, October 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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