Gun Work is a terrific fun book that fits well with soldier of fortune or spy novels. It is not a mystery (at least after the first section).

There are three main parts to the book. The main character is Barney, an ex-US Army soldier, returned from battle in Iraq, where he met a news correspondent, Carl Ledbetter. Barney is ensconsed at a gun range in Los Angeles, where he works and practices his shooting every day. He keeps his most valuable possessions in his safe at the gun range and is not terribly connected to modern society. He is the kind of friend polite people don't associate with much except when they need some real muscle and firepower to protect them and get them out of a jam. "When you worked at a range with a piece on your hip, every customer was your pal from bangers to cops." Indeed, "people tended to seek Barney's counsel whenever they fell afoul of some extralegal difficulty, the kind of gray zone balls-up that consistently befalls people you think of as completely normal and law-abiding." The author tells the reader to rate your friends and acquaintances and admonishes the reader that you already know which friend you'd ask for help "when shady bad stuff rears up in your life."

Carl, in a panicked telephone call from a payphone in Mexico City, tells Barney that he was recently married, they vacationed in Mexico, and his wife has been kidnapped with one million dollars ransom being demanded. And, Carl doesn't know what to do. Of course, Barney, being the hero that he is, flies down to help Carl. Carl doesn't seem to know how to handle a gun and is taken aback when Barney brings weapons to the hostage exchange location. Everything seems to go wrong and Barney ends up suffering in a hostage hotel in some really horrible ways. After he escapes (and if he didn't, there wouldn't be much of a story, so that's not giving anything away), he plans his revenge with three other gun-toting vigilantes, almost like the posse heading to the rescue in a Western, guns blazing away.

The action takes this story from Mexico City to Manhattan to Los Angeles. There is plenty of gun play and fighting and the author seems to take immense pleasure in detailing the precise weaponry and defensive armaments that Barney and his small army are wielding. Although the start of the book is like a pulp-era travel adventure, the majority of the book is a mean, lean action story that reads incredibly quickly. Besides the action, the book includes one of the most dangerous femme fatales the world has ever seen and dozens of masked wrestlers.

If you open this book expecting a hardboiled detective novel in the Sam Spade tradition, forget about it. This book is an action-packed adventure from beginning to end. Well done. ( )

Despite a Mexican setting, which I generally like, I found this hyper-violent, rather unbelievable crime novel not very much to my taste, and I wish I hadn't wasted my time finishing it. I enjoy what one Amazon reviewer wrote, that the book is for "gun aficionados who enjoy tales of extreme violence unencumbered by character development or coherent plotting....One would really have to have an in depth knowledge of armaments in order to fully appreciate or even care about the detailed specs given each and every time a new weapon is introduced." ( )

Good action.
Pretty raw, kind of like a car wreck, can't keep from looking.
Really makes tourism in Mexico appealing-Ha!!
Luchadore action was a great twist. ( )

Violent, entertaining, but not the best of Hard Case's offerings. Without the Mexican wrestling/mythology angle, it would've been pretty flat. Your basic revenge plot. ( )