Country: USA
Genre: Thriller/Pulp Fiction
Pages: 282
I didn't know what to expect, when I read FUN & GAMES last summer. But starting HELL & GONE, the second volume of Charlie Hardie's adventure, I was excited. Pardon me, I was giggling-schoolgirl excited. Reading Duane Swierczynski is something unique, because his fiction (at least, the Charlie Hardie books) is completely free of this existential weight of literature. Remember those crazy, over-the-top action movies with Ice-T and Mario Van Peebles in the early nineties? That's how reading Swierczynski feels like. You gotta suspend your disbelief because there's very little to relate to in there. So what is there? A crazy, action-fueled novel that makes reading cool again. It's the essence of pulp fiction itself. It's writers like Duane Swierczynski that will give literature back to the people. There should be a lot more novels like that, just raw adventures stories.
Here's a crash course on Charlie Hardie if you don't already know him. After a life-changing drama, he started being a house sitter. Easy job, where he could booze up and watch movies. One day, he finds a jilted actress in one of the houses he's working in. She seems paranoid, but she was rightfully scared of the accident people. At the end of FUN & GAMES, Hardie has (seemingly) triumphed of the accident people, but he's in piece and wheeled out in an ambulance. Turned out he was wheeled to an underground facility. A prison for the most dangerous criminals on earth, where the only way to escape would trigger a "death mechanism" and kill everybody. Charlie has to learn to live with a new disability (two of his limbs have lost some functionality and a bunch of weirdos who haven't seen the light of day in many, many years (guardians and prisoners alike).
Having an archetypal cold-blooded, wisecracking hero, such as Hardie is a lot of fun, but he's not really someone you can question. But due to the loose structure of the storyline, you can question everything else. Hardie is, by nature a character that finds himself on the fine line of the concept of authority. He's a cop, but not really and in HELL & GONE he's a prisoner...but not really. Not in the classic sense of the term. Swierczynski, in this series, shuffles the cards of society as we understand it. Who you thought were the good guys turn out to be a danger to Hardie and everyone he love. What you thought was safe, like being a prison warden, turns out to be more dangerous that being on the other side of the bars. You're being kept guessing throughout the novel who should you trust and who really has an angle on the accident people.
While FUN & GAMES was ethereal and thoroughly funny, HELL & GONE has another flavor. It's a lot more psychological. It's still a very funny novel (think of a LETHAL WEAPON kind of humor), but instead of the sprawling Hollywood hills as a backdrop, you have a suffocating underground prison. The crowd down there had a way of living and a baggage that to decipher and adapt to, if he wants to ever go back to the surface and see his family again. They are his lifeline.HELL & GONE is a very fitting second volume to the series. It's not as fast paced and it's developing the character of Charlie Hardie a lot more than FUN & GAMES. The third and final installment is coming soon (hopefully). This needs to be a trilogy of movies and make a lot of money. There is a place for Duane Swierczynski in the literary landscape. He brings new ideas and a fresh approach to the medium. He quickly became one of the writers I'm the most enthusiastic about. The Charlie Hardie novels will keep you warm and entertained this winter. Read them.