When Erik Make Loud, retired rock star and a major World War Two nut, hires Cordelia, the Paperback Sleuth, to track down a series of lurid paperbacks about his favourite global conflict—the “Commando” novels by the blatantly pseudonymous Butch Raider—it seems like a routine job. But Cordelia soon discovers the final novel in the series, the incredibly rare Commando Gold, is all but impossible to track down.
The books’ creator—real name Monty Harrington, once a promising young poet and now a depraved drunk—proves easier to find. Writing pulp war stories didn’t come naturally to Monty. Until he met someone who knew all about such stuff during a pub crawl; a genuine ex-commando who, for the price of a pint or two, was willing to provide Monty with authentic anecdotes.
Too authentic, it turns out…
Because Commando Gold reveals the details of a real-life commando mission.
At the time the mission was top secret.
And all these years later, someone is quite prepared to kill to keep it so.
Like A Bullet, Andrew Cartmel
LIKE A BULLET is the third novel in The Paperback Sleuth series from author Andrew Cartmel, also known for his Vinyl Detective Series. Having now read one from each of these, the overriding aspect of these novels is a slightly over the top humour that is going to be perfect for some readers. And confuse and possibly annoy the hell out of others.
There are, apparently, also a lot of crossovers of characters in both series, so whilst it's not completely necessary to have read any of the earlier books from either set, it would perhaps help a little to have read some of the earlier Paperback Sleuth ones, because the central character here, Cordelia, is someone to be going on with.
The idea behind the series is that Cordelia specialises in tracking down rare paperback novels for fans who have a lot of money and no idea / desire to do the job themselves. She has special contacts and ways and means of finding these little gems, starting out combing charity shops and jumble sales, but not above a spot of nefarious dealings and burglary to get her hands on her much desired prizes. All of which seems to always come with a hefty dose of wrong target, very big bother, when it comes to parting owners from their much prized books. And some quite surprising ill-gotten gains along the way.
To be fair, it's all a bit of high-silly fun, and some of the supporting cast, like her landlord Edwin and his dog, are lovely characters. Cordelia, on the other hand, is a more tricky undertaking, bordering on unlikeable, which will mean that new to the series readers might be wondering just who she thinks she is. But remembering this is high humour, almost farce, that humour will either work. Or not. For this reader it kind of did, and then it all got a bit too much, and two one armed men and a few seriously silly names later, and I was mildly annoyed, and more than a bit confused by how or why or how anyone would want to spend any time at all with a bibliophile who is mostly just in it for the cash. Although, to be fair, she's not above a very decent gesture if you're in this book to the end.
Definitely one for fans of a very tongue in cheek brand of humour, with hefty doses of farce and some very uncomfortably understandable threats on the life of The Paperback Sleuth.