Books |
The Silver Bear
Derek Haas
By
Published: Jan 01, 2008
Category:
Mystery
There is no love in The Silver Bear.
Not one little bit.
The desire for love, the hunger for love? Oh, this short novel has plenty of that. There’s even a woman the narrator is crazy for. But then bad things happen, as they are prone to happen when you are a professional assassin, and Columbus — we never get his given name — has to cut her loose. He doesn’t want to. If he doesn’t, though, guys who are after him are surely going to kill her.
So how does he convince her it’s over?
First, he denies he ever cared for her. You were, he says, “someone to sleep with to get my mind off of all the other shit in my life.” Then he hits her in the face. And when she falls, he kicks her in the stomach.
Yeah, she gets the idea.
You may ask: Why didn’t you close the book right there? Because by then I was on page 135 and had already endured
— the murder of a 17-year-old prostitute, killed simply because she might be able to identify him.
— an initiation as a hit man, in which he and a guy he hated are locked in a warehouse, with the understanding that if no one dies the kingpin will kill them both.
— the murder of a female judge, in a courthouse stairwell, using Saran Wrap.
— a bloodbath in a heavily guarded house, with the final victim groping for a gun “the way a covetous man looks at his neighbor’s wife, so close, yet a mile away.”
And that’s just the tip of the violence — this 200-page thriller is steeped in ugly deeds and chilly psychology. It’s the sickest book I’ve read in years, right up there with Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me or the Michael Caine movie, Get Carter — and around here, that’s a compliment.
Credit where it’s due: Derek Haas co-authored the screenplays for “3:10 to Yuma” and “Wanted”, and in this, his first novel, his skill in story construction shows; you may be horrified, but you are hopelessly riveted, desperate to know what’s next.
And you do understand why Columbus is this way — his was a childhood for the record books. Lots of foster homes, and the last was the worst. As a teen, he did a stint in jail. And then he was tossed into in the world, friendless and vulnerable, with a hardness in the eyes that’s catnip to men who work the dark side.
Best to learn as little as you can of the plot. Let’s just say that Columbus gets hired to murder a most unlikely guy. This kill will be the challenge — and the resolution — of his life. It will also be all but impossible. Still, he’s the best, and so begins the ride.
I disagreed with the ending. Maybe I’d feel this way about any ending — for once, I found myself saying: “I could read a little more.” It’s that kind of book: You can’t put the sucker down.
But why would you want to?
To buy “The Silver Bear” from Amazon.com, click here.
