Review:
HEAD GAMES by Craig McDonald
Review by Sandra Ruttan
Crime writer Hector Lassiter is being trailed by would-be poet Bud Fiske, whose been assigned to write a profile on the aging author. Lassiter and Fiske are in a cantina in Mexico when a friend drops a carpet bag down on the table and produces the head of a Mexican general.
Lassiter barely has time to absorb what’s just happened before the shooting starts. Lassiter and Fiske make it out with their lives – and the head – although Lassiter’s friend who brought the head wasn’t so lucky. And thus begins a series of car chases, assaults and grave-robbing for substitute heads while Lassiter and Fiske try to figure out who’s trying to get the Mexican general’s head back. Lassiter’s friend had said there was good money to be made, and if they can stay alive, Lassiter might find a way to cash in.
On the surface, HEAD GAMES sounds like an action-packed tale, and that would be a fair way to describe it, although it would short-change the book. This is one of those books where you soon realize that, while the author easily maintains the momentum throughout this adrenaline-charged story, it runs deeper. The title HEAD GAMES could easily be taken as more than a serious of attempts to steal a general’s head, because it’s as much about what’s going on in the mind of Lassiter as he comes to terms with his own demons and what he’s lost. HEAD GAMES was a book I found engaging on multiple levels, and McDonald easily proves you can write a pacey narrative that still has fully developed, engaging characters. In fact, I would classify HEAD GAMES as character-driven, despite the snappy pace of events that unfold in the story.
One of the best debuts of 2007, and I must give credit to McDonald for including one of the best references to a real person I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.