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Post by dem bones on Jul 23, 2015 13:53:07 GMT
Ed Gorman - Runner In The Dark (Headline, 1996) Steve Crisp Blurb: It's five years since David Gerard got out —sprung from the courtroom in a hail of bullets that left nine dead. And left his brother, Roy, in jail under sentence of death. Tonight, Roy faces electrocution. Unless David can pull the plug.
District Attorney Jessica Dennis believes in the ultimate sanction. She's prepared to debate the ethics of the death penalty on television a few hours before Roy is due to die. It's a programme the whole city will be watching.
David has a helicopter, a pilot and two callous killers on his team. But neither of them thirst for revenge the way he does. And the chief object of his vengeance is the blonde and beautiful prosecutor who has placed his brother in the electric chair.
Tonight David aims to get even with Jessica and save his brother's life. He's taking over a live TV broadcast and holding a city to ransom. Whatever the outcome, no one will be switching channels...The cover artwork alone would have been enough, but on reading the blurb and realising this is a 'live TV panel in peril' thriller (see also Raymond Thompson & Treve Daly's under-rated siege thriller The Number To Call Is .... ) there was no way I was gonna pass on Runner In The Dark. Seventy pages in and am already liking it a lot. The blurb for once tells it like it is. The Gerard brothers are the vilest of the vile. An early career highlight was the multiple rape and murder of an eleven year old girl. They even took turns at screwing the corpse. For tonight's rescue mission, David has hired the best - Ralph Harrigan, a former Green Beret - and, just to make things interesting, a total liability - young Tim Cates, the badass cowboy with a flair for psychotic violence. The double event has already attracted more media attention than any baseball game in history, so it's essential that NOTHING GOES WRONG. Jessica is already wishing she'd declined the studio's invitation, and when , on the eve of the execution/ live TV debate, she receives a curt note -" You're dead, bitch. David Gerard" she realises it is going to be a long twenty-four hours. In the past three days, two of the gang who turned state evidence have been sadistically murdered, and the remains of a young woman have been found dismembered in a dumpster. Jessica's on-off soul mate, Mike Shaw, broadcaster, twice Pulitzer winner and recovering alcoholic, is attending his evening AA meeting prior to going on air. It was Mike who discovered the girl's corpse. She'd phoned him just hours earlier to pass on information regarding David Gerard's plans. Tense moments at the Maximum security prison, too. The state executioner has thrown a sick and Chief Warden Russ Atkinson doesn't much care for his replacement, McCann, who spectacularly screwed up on a previous job. The man's unashamed delight in administering death is positively indecent. Murder, more murder, flashbacks to previous murders - it's getting like Natural Born Killers in here.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 3, 2015 13:21:13 GMT
Finished this off some time last week without taking any notes, but the gist goes something like this. The gang penetrate the studio's security with relative ease. To get the party started, David Gerard shoots dead a guard live on air and secures the three hostages. Along with Jessica, we have the thoroughly decent Father Josek, and William Cornell, the shows wilfully obnoxious, porker of a presenter. Gerard, a huge fan of Jack Nicholson in The Shining - he has the "Heeeeeere's Johnny" routine down to a tee - shamelessly mugs the camera, providing a sick running commentary to the "entertainment." When he's not beating on and humiliating the "contestants" he's reminding Governor Standish that Jessica has a bomb strapped to her leg. Unless his brother is released pronto, these three fine citizens will be executed, one after the other.
Governor Standish, despised by friend and foe alike as a lily-livered liberal, is all for releasing Roy Gerard from Death Row if it means saving lives. The problem is, for too long he's been a puppet to dashing Dylan Ames, ambitious young PR man, who in turn has the full support of Mrs. Standish. Ames cautions the Governor it would be better for his ratings that he refuse to cave in to these criminals and damn the consequences.
Of course, even if Roy is set free, what's to stop his even crazier brother from killing the trio just for a laugh?
As SWAT teams surround the building, Mike Shaw, who has just learned that Jessica is three months pregnant with his child, launches his own rescue mission via a window washer's cradle.
Suspense suspense suspense.
We're all set for a grandstand finish!
And that, unfortunately, is what we get. An exciting, horrible, thoroughly absorbing novel sacrificed to a God-damn feel-good Hollywood ending.
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