Point and Shoot by Duane Swierczynski

Published by Mulholland Books on April 30, 2013 

Had I read the first two books in the Charlie Hardie series before reading Point and Shoot, I might not have felt quite so lost as I tried to make sense of Hardie's flashbacks in the opening pages. What's this outfit called the Cabal and why is Hardie in low Earth orbit watching a daily video of his family in their kitchen? He's essentially been put to work (quite against his will) as a security guard whose job is to kill anyone who manages the nearly impossible task of breaking into the satellite. Of course, someone does. What is Hardie guarding? He doesn't know, but it's clearly something dangerous.

Point and Shoot is a thriller infused with elements that border on science fiction. It's sort of tongue-in-cheek Ludlum, complete with a conspiratorial organization and a protagonist who, like Jason Bourne, has been the subject of unorthodox experiments. Yet unlike Bourne, a protagonist who is meant to be taken seriously, Charlie Hardie is anything but. In addition to crime fiction, Duane Swierczynski writes comic books, and there's a touch of superhero in Hardie -- a jaded, reluctant superhero, sort of Howard the Duck crossed with any of those Marvel characters who were constantly complaining about their lives. The story has a comic book sensibility in that it's not quite grounded in the real world, although that doesn't diminish the fun of reading it.

And reading this fast-moving, tongue-in-cheek novel is loads of fun. Hardie is wild, "a force of living mayhem" whose unending bad luck is reinforced by the fact that he's so hard to kill. The poor guy would sometimes prefer death to the unfortunate life he's living, making him a sympathetic, even likable, protagonist. The addition of a second character who is carrying a lot of Hardie's baggage doubles the fun, and the spectacularly over-the-top killers who populate the novel are just hilarious. For all the mayhem, however, the ironic ending has a certain sweetness. (Although there's a second ending, more like the beginning of another novel, that culminates in a cliffhanger. How annoying is that?)

Swierczynski makes frequent references to movies, beginning each of the short chapters with a quotation from a film. The book would make an entertaining action flick. It isn't deep but it isn't meant to be. Hard-charging prose, goofy characters, and a mayhem-fueled plot are enough for readers who like that sort of thing ... and I happen to be one of those. (Note to sensitive readers: if you shy away from the F-word and its variants, you really want to avoid Point and Shoot.)

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