Meet Charlie Hardie

11828769Fun & Games by Duane Swierczynski
My Rating: 4/5 Stars

Meet Charlie Hardie, former cop, resident badass, coming to housesit in a neighborhood near you. He gets drunk and watches old movies as often as Congress runs a budget deficit, before he meets Lane Madden, a chick with more attitude and gumption and fighting ability than the top UFC contender, and gets tossed in the middle of the ring with a group of coldblooded killers. Lane’s tough, and she’s not about to take attitude from anyone, including a group of hit men and one woman who want nothing more than to see her dead.

If I had to pick a favorite character (and this is nothing short of a difficult task), I’d have to say Mann topped the charts. She focuses on the score, and she has a body and an attitude that just won’t quit. Despite being maimed and mauled (and her thing against guns), she’s going to see her assignment through all the way to end, as long as she still has a breath or two left in her. She focuses on her script, and she sets out to direct her masterpiece, even if she has to improvise her plan multiple times.

If FUN AND GAMES had been set anywhere other than LA, the high speed chases on narrow mountain passes, the tan, shaved woman sunbathing on her deck in the nude in broad daylight, the impalement of Charlie by a beautiful woman in a t-shirt and bikini underwear wielding a microphone stand like it’s a machete, and the house that goes up in flames faster than a hayfield after a lightning strike, the antics might have strained my believability factor, even though I have a high tolerance for suspending disbelief. But I figured this was LA and all bets are off, literally, and I thought absolutely nothing of the shenanigans, as I pushed the car close to ninety in the middle of the freeway, flipping page after high-octane page, and enjoying the ride with every smooth turn.

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  1. Pingback: Unkillable Charlie Hardie | Robert Downs

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