Book Review: Gun Monkeys

Reviewed By: Charlie Cale

Gun Monkeys     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Victor Gischler
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Hard Boiled   Noir
Uglytown, the little publisher that could, has served up another
fine book; A literate Noir that is pure hardboiled! It’s all about
this bizarre concept of honor among thieves, or in this case loyalty
among organized crime subordinates. Anyway, it’s refreshing to see
a crime story set in Florida wherein the protagonists aren’t all
constantly leaping up shrieking “Look how kooky and zany I am!” I
think we’ve all been there and seen that. Time for something
different, and “Gun Monkeys” is just that!

“Charlie Swift” runs the Monkey Cage. He’s one of Stan’s boys. He’s survived the longest and has the old man’s trust so of all the enforcers in Stan’s Orlando operation, Charlie is the top Gun Monkey. Between trying to straighten out his hot headed brother, appeasing his Mom and keeping the attention of his new girl, he’s about to walk into a whole new level of trouble. “Begger Johnson”, top crimelord of South Florida, wants Stan’s territory. Orlando is ripe and the old man ain’t squeezin’ hard enough. So Begger thinks it’s time to step in. Soon Charlie is flying solo with all his compatriots dead or missing. He doesn’t even know if Stan is alive, dead or maybe blown town. What do you do when your boss is missing, your backup is dead and everything you know is burnt to the ground? When you’re a gun monkey like Charlie you’re either a nobody going nowhere or you’re one of Stan’s boys with a job to do. The streets don’t get any meaner as this hardboiled yet highly likeable button man goes looking for answers.

Victor Gischler teaches university level creative writing. But I don’t hold that against him. See he doesn’t fool me. His work is pure cordite. You can almost smell it in the air as you read. Gischler’s one of the crew alright. It’s all well and good he can diagram a complex sentence and use metaphor with a flourish to drive home a point. It’s fine with me if he fully fleshes out the characterization of a minor player with sparse dialogue in only a few telling scenes. This way he can spread the noir on triple thick and still make it seem like literature. With his steady use of the finer points of writing and his obvious love of the genre he pulls off the ultimate scam. He makes us caper and gumshoe rats feel highbrow. One is tempted to say, “not since Chandler, or McDonald…” but that’s too *trite! Gischler is Gischler. Don’t miss him!

Charlie Cale

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Charlie Cale