Victor Gischler Shotgun Opera

Shotgun Opera

Victor Gischler

Dell, May 2006, $6.99, 336 pp.

ISBN: 0440241715

Andrew Foley and two of his mob connected friends got paid one thousand dollars each for moving a container that didn't go through customs to a special warehouse. Instead of leaving, the three men played cards until they hear an explosion and then see a man walk out of the container. They instinctively knew that the man is a terrorist and run away from the docks. Someone is systemically killing everyone connected to the terrorist until Andrew is the only one left standing.

Nikki, the free lance deadly assassin doesn't go after Andrew who left the city to hide with an uncle he never saw before in Oklahoma. Nikki's arm is injured so she sends her middle sister while Andrew connects with his Uncle Mike who left the mob after he killed a child. He made a new life for himself and for forty years tending his vineyard, but is now back drawn into the life when he has to protect his dead brother's son. Nikki is marked for a hit by her handler who subcontracts the job out just as Andrew's hit is sub contracted out. By the time everyone shoots everyone else, only two people will be left.

This serio-comic crime thriller proves the old axiom violence begets more violence. SHOTGUN OPERA is a Keystone Cops' thriller complete with eccentric hit men and women, dark humor and plenty of action. Andrew never got involved with the mob while his uncle stopped being a killer when he lost his nerve after shooting a child. They are two sides of the same coin and soon they will be stripped to their raw essence and finally learn what they are made of. This is a wild cozy with some very funny tongue in cheek scenes that will have readers laughing even though they know somebody will be killed in the next scene.

Harriet Klausner