Hard Case Crime's BRANDED WOMAN by Wade Miller is my most
recent read.
It's a hardboiled adventure story that reminds me of
David Dodge's novels. Cay Morgan, a former smuggler, arrives
in Mexico with a .357 Magnum, planning to hunt down and take
revenge on a mysterious person known as The Trader, who
branded her five years before for disobeying orders that one
of The Trader's minions had relayed to her.
Early in the book I noticed the large number of fetishistic
descriptions of Cay's body and clothing. This fervour extends
to the environmental descriptions. My favourite over-the-top
one is a description of the Isla de Puesta del Sol as a
"verdant bosomy mound"!
The development of the story is refreshingly
unpredictable, though I guessed The Trader's true identify by
half-way through the book. The crook characters D'Hureau and
Felix remind me (in a good way) of Gutman and Joel Cairo from
THE MALTESE FALCON.
The ending of the novel has a satisfying climax, and there is
still a surprise left even if you've guessed who The Trader
is. For me, the most important aspect of BRANDED WOMAN is
that it is a type of novel that I've been interested to read:
it's a hard-boiled novel told from the perspective of a femme
fatale. Cay possesses all the recognisable traits of
hard-boiled fiction's most notorious female archetype; but
this time, her story is the main plot of the novel.
Paul
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