From
the inside flap
“Martin
offers the story of Vernon Coy, a pimp and small-time bank robber who’s living the
easy life with two girls and a rooster. The girls─Paula and Curly─are like
family, and the rooster is not just any rooster. He fought an alligator to a
standstill and he’s making Vern a fortune at the cockfights. Of course, the
easy life never stays easy for long. What Vern doesn’t know is that he’s in the
hat.
“There’s
a little ritual unique to prison gangs. When someone crosses your gang, his
name gets put in the hat with a bunch of blank slips of paper. Whoever draws
the slip with the name on it is expected to make sure that this someone ends up
dead before the next lockdown. Since Vern’s on the outside, killing him won’t
be that simple or that quick., but if the Duboce White Boys have their way, it
won’t be long before Vern is just another body with a tag on its toe.
“The
only man who can warn Vern is his brother, Weldon. But Weldon’s doing twenty-five
to life, and he can’t even get a word out to Vern. The result: murder, mayhem,
cops, robbers and robbery. . .”
Review
Hat is a
good, effective mix of relatable characters with a laidback family vibe and
hardboiled crime and violence. Martin keeps the tone switches and story believable─life
can turn in an instant, after all─and the pacing, characters, and everything
else in Hat work, as well. This has a ‘70s neo-pulp, atypical-family vibe,
with appearances by key characters from Martin’s first novel, The Dishwasher.
Fans of Charles Willeford’s 1972 book Cockfighter and Edward Bunker, an
ex-jailbird author like Martin, may enjoy Hat.
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