Fred Willard (1)

A hard-boiled action novel that takes place on the seedy side of Ponce de Leon Avenue (pronounced "Ponss" or "Pon-cey" by Atlanta natives) during the late 1990's. The diner on the front cover is the (in)famous Majestic Diner which, until 2022 or so, bragged "We Never Close" and was a great site for after-bar-hopping food. It's open during daylight hours these days; hoping it can return to its seedy greatness.

Told from the POV of Sam Fuller, an ex-con living in a trailer on Lake Lanier, there is biting commentary and sardonic wit on Fuller's history and those he meets. He's approached early on by a slick lawyer who wants his wife killed, at which point Fuller goes and warns the wife. Then decides to take a long vacation only to find that events have skyrocketed past what would be a normal murder-for-hire situation.

Joined at a Single-Room-Occupancy hotel on Ponce by a double-amputee, a giant man with limited speech, and a driver for a mortuary service, Fuller decides to look into who is trying to kill him and why. And while some of the wry humor and sardonic wit work, there's also a whole lotta detail of one group tied into another tied into a third that makes it almost but not quite work. It reminds me a lot of the Burke novels by Andrew Vachss, and it is wonderfully refreshing to see modern Atlanta as a setting for novels of all genres.… (més)