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Maybe a 1.5. It wasn't awful, but I didn't particularly enjoy it.

I admit, I only picked this up because I needed an 'L' author and it also fit another challenge category - that will learn me!

It took me a couple of days to finish because it was just too easy to put down for other books. Kind of reminds me of No Country For Old Men, this does have speech marks but the tone/ style overall was similar. It started off OK, then just went rapidly downhill.

Armand Degas ( Blackbird) is a hit man, there is a long winded and not very interesting reason behind him being called Blackbird and everytime he meets someone, we get to read the reason again... He is given a Cadillac as payment for an execution.

The car attracts the attention of Richie Nix, a trigger happy ex-con. Richie realises Armand is a hit man while he is attempting to steal the car, instead of hi-jacking the Caddy, he recruits Armand to help him with his plan is to extort money from a former associate...

(If Armand was truly a badass, he could have just shot Richie in the face for attempting to steal his Caddy and continued on his way to Detroit and go on a tour of the Ford factory or something. That would have made this book would shorter and far more interesting)


It was around this point things started to go downhill...


A few interminable, mind-numbing chapters while Armand and Richie stay with Donna, Richie's 'woman'. (Donna is an Elvis obsessed criminal -humper, who is a dab hand with frozen dinners and drives a school bus. I hate to say it but I'm pretty sure if a person got fired from the prison service for sexual misconduct, I doubt that person would pass the record checks to be allowed to drive kids around)

Carmen and Wayne are a married couple with an empty nest. Carmen is employed by Nelson, the guy from whom Richie plans to screw money from. As a result, the couple are in the wrong place at the wrong time and are eventually placed in witness protection to keep them safe from Armand and Richie.

I have never read such a farcical and unrealistic set-up for witness protection, they keep the same names, have contact with family and keep the same cars! But Wayne does change his job...eh?

Richie and Armand are trying to track them down which should have been simple, but Richie and Armand don't come over as being very smart guys

The ending is predictable and not very satisfying.

While I was avoiding reading this, I came across this quote by Ernest Hemingway...

When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.

I think that's the trouble I was having with this and too many books lately...The people are not believable as human beings.