A Flash of Red

April 29, 1996
From the quick-clutch first sentence ("I didn't want to shoot him, I really didn't"), first-novelist Harvey (whose nonfiction includes The Hunter's Rifle) establishes himself as a writer possessed of cool control. Narrator Tyler Vance, is, like his creator, an author of books about guns. He's also a former Army "specialist" trained in wet work and dirty tricks, dad to a four-year-old son and seemingly incapable of avoiding trouble. The man Tyler doesn't want to shoot in the opening line is one of two bank robbers dead by his hand in the first scene. The remainder of the novel concerns Tyler's efforts to save his son, and other relations and friends, from the dead men's vengeful partners. Drugs and weapon sales fit into the muscular story line as well. Tyler is tough but sentimental enough to avoid being hard-boiled, rather like Robert B. Parker's Spenser, and he's as much of a smart-mouth as the Boston PI. The first adventure of this lethal weapon in human form zips along in pared-down prose. If only Harvey can learn to refrain from occasional archness ("I left before I had to bear further brunt"), readers should enjoy the promised second as much as this one.