Bei diesem Buch kann man kaum von herkömmlicher Spannungsliteratur reden, auch wenn das Cover einen darüber aufklärt, dass der Autor deutscher Krimipreisträger ist. Wer oberflächliche Unterhaltung sucht, ist hier falsch aufgehoben.

Ex-Agent David wird aus dem Ruhestand zurückgeholt.
Er soll seinen ehemaligen Kollegen, Luc Planchat, finden, der wahllos meuchelnd durch Amerika zieht.
Er ist "eine Killermaschine. Die beste und ganz sicher die kunstvollste, die je ersonnen wurde." - wie es ein Vorgesetzter ausdrückt.
David nimmt das Ganze allerdings eher auf die lockere Schulter. Er begibt sich auf eine Fahrt durch die amerikanische Provinz bei der er Zeit findet in verrauchten Bars Country-Musikern zuzuhören und mit traurigen Kellnerinnen zu flirten.
Zwischendurch kommt es immer wieder zu Gewaltszenen, David liefert sich Schlägereien mit Saufbrüdern und wird von Killern verfolgt, die Anschläge auf sein Leben verüben, doch wirklich aus der Ruhe bringen lässt er sich dadurch nicht. Der Autor beschreibt die Geschehnisse eher aus der Distanz, so dass nie ein wirkliches Gefühl der Gefahr aufkommt.
Als er am Ende seinem Gegenspieler begegnet, ist die Luft längst raus. Die Handlung ist bereits derartig zerfasert, dass man gar nicht mehr weiß, wer hier hier eigentlich wen und weshalb umbringen will.

"Deine Augen hat der Tod" ist ein meditatives, langsames Buch, das seine Story nur als Vorwand nutzt um tiefschürfende Betrachtungen über das Leben, die Liebe, das Altern anzustellen. Das ist stellenweise ganz interessant, aber auch ein wenig prätentiös. Und manchmal gelingt es dem Autor die Dinge sehr schön auf den Punkt zu bringen:
"Ironie, würde mancher sagen, ist die Stimme unserer Zeit, einer Zeit, die vielleicht mehr dem Bild und der Form als der Substanz zuneigt." ( )

James Sallis is fabulous writer who crafts beautiful, singing sentences. That said, though the poetry is here, this novel (which is kind of an espionage metafiction) didn't draw me in as his other books have done. Many circles within circles within circles - and I just got dizzy. His heroes sometimes have a self-centeredness about them, with their experiences and sensations so front and center that other characters get pushed to the sides. I didn't find this character as engaging as other Sallis protagonists and so spending time in his head (even when he was expressing himself so elegantly) got a little tiresome. I've enjoyed every other book by him that I've read more than this one, so this was a one-off off-tune story for me.

"Everything you know about me, everything you think you know, is false."

When you find yourself chanting "I'm so bored" in your head while reading a book you know that that book probably isn't the one for you. I couldn't help but chant that while reading this. I managed to finish this within a day because it was a relatively short book and I realize that if this had been any longer that it would have been the first book I didn't finish in a long time.

Death Will Have Your Eyes is being released by Mulholland Books as a part of their Classics series. I picked it up from NetGalley because it was being advertised as 'a novel about spies.' Now let me tell you, this is nothing like spy novels that I love. This felt more like a sad one-man roadtrip in which the main character occasionally has an assassin sent after him, he is run off the road, or he sleeps with a local woman. There was just a teeny bit of action in this and basically a ton about this man's dreams and memories. He seems to be trying to find out just who he is.

I didn't really like the main character and could pretty much care less whenever he found himself in danger. I wasn't really big on his relationship with Gabrielle because he himself wasn't really faithful to her.

I was confused by the events at the end and pretty much had no clue what had happened. By that time I didn't even care that I couldn't understand it. This was not the fast-paced spy novel that I was looking for and I can't bring myself to recommend this to anyone. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the galley. ( )

I first came across the work of James Sallis many years ago when I read his book THE GUITAR PLAYERS, still one of the finest treatises on American jazz and blues musicians. I later found DIFFICULT LIVES, Sallis's superior exploration of the lives and work of crime writers Chester Himes, Jim Thompson and David Goodis. This examined a totally different field, and couldn't be by the same man, could it? It could, and it was.

Then his Lew Griffin novels began to appear, and I devoured them all. I fell for the Griffin character, and I loved the way that Sallis sprinkled the books with references to my favourite bluesmen and literary heroes. Eric Frank Russell even -- wow, so he also knows about Sci-Fi!

This novel was another new departure. The subtitle is "A novel about spies", and that's just what it is. But not the usual kind we've been used to from the likes of Le Carré et al. No, this is set in the post-Cold War period. The hero, an operative in the old days but now retired, is ordered to apprehend a fellow survivor who has apparently gone ape and is killing other colleagues from the past. The quest takes our hero on a road journey across the USA where everything is not as it first seems. To divulge more would spoil the plot. Sallis is a superb writer, and this book is a hugely entertaining and witty read. ( )