Man Eater

Rating:
Summary: This should be on the best seller list!
Review: You already know the basics, so I don't need to tell you about the plot. Just read the book and enjoy a style of writing that surpasses Leonard. Articulate writing mixed with dark humor, down home grit and a back door view of Hollywood that only an insider could write. MAN EATER needs to be a movie...it crys out for the screen. Quentin Tarrantino needs to make this a film, and Ray Shannon is a formidible writer who deserves a huge readership.

Rating:
Summary: This should be on the best seller list!
Review: You already know the basics, so I don't need to tell you about the plot. Just read the book and enjoy a style of writing that surpasses Leonard. Articulate writing mixed with dark humor, down home grit and a back door view of Hollywood that only an insider could write. MAN EATER needs to be a movie...it crys out for the screen. Quentin Tarrantino needs to make this a film, and Ray Shannon is a formidible writer who deserves a huge readership.

Rating:
Summary: Great premise for a black comedy thriller
Review: You have to wonder why no one thought of this before (at least that I'm aware of). The premise is very clever here and makes for a great read, along with the slick writing. What if a hotshot movie producer, a total babe, while at a local bar, came to the aid of a sleazy [...] being battered left and right by a big, muscular thug, bashing the guy over the head with a beer bottle? At the same time, what if an ex-con wrote a great screenplay and had dreams of selling it, and the producer, coincidentally enough, had this screenplay in one of a stack of 50 or so to read? And what if the big ugly thug found out where the babe lived and did some unspeakable things to her, then gave her 5 days to pay up or die? If the ex-con was also pretty muscular, maybe he could protect the babe. If, of course, he wanted to sell his screenplay.

Very clever. This is the central premise and while it may sound that the story's given away here, relax. There's a bunch of surprises in store for the reader and the author, Ray Shannon (pseudonym for an actual screenwriter, Gar Anthony Haywood) is really smart and knows plotting like Lipton knows tea. This baby has solid momentum and yes, WOULD make a great thriller on screen.

Shannon/Haywood is smart enough to know exactly how to raise the stakes by introducing other characters who will add to the tension and drive the momentum onward like a non-stop freight train. The thug, the ex-con, and the producer are the three leads, but also here are a couple of low-life brothers, the aforementioned [...], the producer's back-stabbing rival, as well as her neurotic boss, her ex-husband and son, the ex-con's ex-wife and daughter, and a pimply, vicious drug dealer.

Throw these all together with a perfectly plotted story, as well as the slick writing, and you got yourself a winner. A fine piece of work. Stretching credibility? Hey, if it's done right, that's what makes fiction a lot of fun. And in this novel, trust me, it's done right.