Friday, May 23, 2008

Forgotten Books: REVENGE -- Jack Ehrlich

This book might not be in a class by itself, but, as Bum Phillips would say, it doesn't take very long to call the roll. For me, it's up there with The Killer Inside Me and The Vengeance Man. Like those novels, this one's narrated by a guy who's clearly off the rails, a man who knows "how to right the wrongs, his own way, a way no one else would ever approve of, or understand." Ehrlich wrote a series of novels about a parole officer named Flick, and those aren't bad, but this is the one you want to read. Or, if not this one, Bloody Vengeance, a novel with a similar theme, about vigilante cops. I didn't know when I read it if Ehrlich was serious, and I still don't, but it's well worth looking for if you don't have it on your shelves.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Flick books were OK but this sounds much better.

Now I have to go find a copy. If it's in the same class as The Killer Inside Me, can't be bad.

Jeff M.

Anonymous said...

The other title is Bloody Vengeance, not Revenge, I believe.

mybillcrider said...

Thanks. Sometimes my fingers don't obey my keen brain.

B. Rehder said...

I took your advice and just ordered it off eBay. See how influential you are?

mybillcrider said...

Now I'm afraid you'll hate it.

B. Rehder said...

If I do, well, let's just say the book is appropriately titled.

pattinase (abbott) said...

I'm never sure if it's the covers or stories inside that you like more. Thanks again.

Doc Quatermass said...

Great cover art.

Doc Quatermass said...

Ah, Robert McGinnis.

Anonymous said...

Bill, next time recommend a book that's not $15 on abe!!! How do I getinon this recommended book deal?

RJR

Anonymous said...

I read The Gun in The Pulpit (a western) and Slow Burn. What were the other Flick books?

RJR

mybillcrider said...

Bob, the other Flick books are The Girl Cage; Cry, Baby; and Slow Burn.

mybillcrider said...

Forgot to mention that I wrote the article on Ehrlich's westerns for 20th Century Western Writers, and I liked all of them.

Juri said...

And I liked the one Ehrlich Western I read, can't remember the title, The Fastest Gun in the Pulpit or something to that effect, about a lone gun masquerading as a priest.

Someone should set up a Western counterpart of Hard Case Crime. Hard Case Western? How'd you like that, pardners?

Juri said...

Oh, Bob already mentioned it.

Anonymous said...

Damn.

I read this maybe 35 years ago. Now i gotta get back to it.

Thanks, Bill

DS

Anonymous said...

Just read "Revenge" and greatly enjoyed it! 5-stars in the context of its disreputable genre! Found the narrator a lot more relatable than "The Killer Inside Me". Maybe that's just me; I know "The Killer Inside Me" is considered a classic and this isn't. But that's my reaction. Oh, and the cover pic of the gal who wears her high-heel slippers to the bath; sublime!