Hair-Trigger
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Well into his forties, Derrick Rowe finds himself chasing stray women and stealing cash from the bookstore he manages. Having decided it’s time to stop spinning his wheels, he’s recently turned to robbing banks. Meanwhile, he bails his friend Jack Lofton out of jail, a burly fellow in an alcoholic free-fall of his own. Rowe soon enlists both Lofton and a tough young clerk at the bookstore in another heist, setting the stage for an armed bank robbery, a drive-by shooting, and further complications for all. Told from different perspectives in Clark’s signature clear, concise prose, Hair-Trigger follows the various trails and exploits that lead to a violent climax involving Rowe, Lofton, the police, and several gangsters.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Populated by cons, strippers, and hoods, Clark's (Dragging the River) third novel makes no attempt to air-brush this portrait of life in Toronto. The book begins with Derek Rowe, high, negotiating a phone call from the cops, and relentlessly follows the book-store manager become bank-robber through a series of violent and/or sexy misadventures. The author focuses on Derek, Jack Lofton, and Robert O'Hara, who roar around looking to get by, get high, and get laid. The pared-down narrative style does not detract from the complexity of the anti-heroes; Derek, for example, can be a good guy he wingmans for Jack to great effect but any affection for this character must include a tolerance for ceaseless racism and ruthless womanizing. Whether he is stalking a woman down the streets at night or picking "na fs" up in bars, Derek appears to be a man obsessed. Happily, this provides the author with the setting for the most sparklingly brilliant episode of social commentary in the novel, Clark's obvious fort . Unflinching, unapologetic and fast-paced, the book switches effortlessly through unreliable narrators, demanding that the reader parse truth from fiction, good from bad, right from wrong.
