EASY DEATH

Cops and crooks scramble to recover money from an armored truck robbery.

A former police chief from central Ohio, Boyd ('Nada, 2010) delivers a noir novel about an armored truck heist in an unnamed Northeastern town during the days leading up to Christmas 1951. Inside a number of converging narratives, criminals, ne’er-do-wells, park rangers, police detectives and petty gamblers congregate to create a tale filled with intrigue. At the behest of a local crime boss, Walter and Eddie successfully pilfer the loot only to have the enigmatic Officer Drapp hot on the trail of the money. When the tracks lead through a national park, he meets up with broad-shouldered park ranger Callie Nixon, who's driven to show that a woman can ranger just as well as a man. As this odd couple pushes deeper into the snowy forest, all is not as it seems, and a series of questions emerges. Why does Drapp not call for backup? What's the deal with Callie’s boss, a shadowy park ranger captain? And, perhaps most important, who's shooting at Callie and Drapp from the lookout tower? Combine gunplay in the icy wilderness with the troubles of a small-time gangster maintaining control of his enterprise and a slow-witted laborer who takes a vicious beating over a card game, and you have a recipe for classic pulp fiction. 

An old-style detective story bursting with mystery.