Friday, January 23, 2015

Marked Man, by William Lashner

I put up this short review over on GoodReads, but I figured I might as well post it here as well.


I read a bunch of Lashner several years ago now and really enjoyed his 'better than he wants to be' protagonist, the lawyer Victor Carl. As is the way sometimes with series for me, though, I at some point stopped reading without ever having actually lost interest. So I was happy in a bit of a reading lull to pull this one off my shelves.

As usual, Victor is still hoping to be the bad boy who makes a killing without regard to scruples, but unfortunately for him, he still has some. That's what we know about him that he doesn't seem to know about himself, although to his regret, he's slowly realizing it. In the quest for one Chantel Adair, whose name has quite literally been tattooed on his chest without his consent, and while trying to pay back a family obligation by bringing an errant son back to his dying mother, Victor of course finds himself in more trouble than he ever anticipated.

Series regulars like Victor's law partner Beth and the private eye he hires, Phil Skink, have their roles here, but for the most part Lashner breaks out into new territory with a new cast of characters. I find this a greatly enjoyable series with a comic undercurrent, and wish Lashner was better known than he appears to be, at least out my way.

2 comments: