Costaine and McCall are "business detectives," and they supposedly work cases having to do with business, which the one detailed in 2 Guns for Hire certainly does. But there's usually a murder or two thrown in, along with (in the case of this book at least) lots of sex.
Both men are tough guys, but McCall is sort of the Jack Reacher of the pair. He's huge and indestructible. He also plays the bagpipes, though not in this book. He's proud of being "Scotch," a word that nowadays applies only to tape and whisky, I believe. Costaine is darkly handsome, but not as big as McCall. Both are, naturally, irresistible to women.
In this instance they're hired to look into the death of an automobile manufacturer. Nearly everyone believes it's suicide, but of course it's not. There are family problems among the three sons of the magnate, along with a thuggish businessman who wants to get his hands on their inherited shares in the company, along with a supposed half-brother by way of the bar sinister who's even more thuggish. And did I mention beautiful women?
This is a slick, professional book, pretty much as I remembered it to be. There are several others in the series, and I read them all with enjoyment at one time. I might even reread another one, just for fun.
8 comments:
I've always loved this cover! Never read the book, though.
The Costaine/McCall books were great page-turners. It's too bad Knox Burger killed the series.
I agree, Barry. The books were a lot of fun.
I have five of these: Third on a Straw, Hot Damn, Death Takes an Option, 2 Guns for Hire, and The Death Ride. I'm not sure how many there were, that may be all of them. I'll sure go and read that article!.
I think that's all. The whole article is well worth your time, though the part about this series is what really caught my attention.
Some research reveals there are seven of the books, the last two being Mexican Slay Ride (1962) and The Spy Catchers (1966) After I've read the others, I may )or may not) try to find them.
Yep, you're right. I just went and looked at my shelves. I have them all. I haven't read those two, however.
Read Mertz's interview with Ballard and wasn't surprised to learn that it was Knox Burger who killed the series.
While Burger may have been offended by the byline matching that of a reporter he knew (and I remember the reporter from TV panel shows like Meet the Press, it may just have been that Burger had a "not invented by me" streak.
Burger ran off several of the Gold Medal mainstays. Of course, this did have one happy result. John D. Macdonald began the Travis McGee series to help Burger when he was under fire for losing Richard Prather's Shell Scott series.
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