Read the Last Gischler Available: "Shotgun Opera" by Victor Gischler

Read the Last Gischler Available: Shotgun Opera by Victor Gischler, 2006, 9780440241713 (paper).

This was the last Gischler available. I was spacing out his work until the time his newer stuff is coming out. Turns out there are a couple short story collections in the catalog that include Gischler's work. This was typically good work by the Great and Mighty Gischler.

Mike Foley and his older brother Dan were paid killers in NYC during the '60s. Mike favored a tommy gun and during one hit ends up firing some bursts through some apartment windows. He goes inside and sees a child's leg sticking out from underneath a dead woman. Mike loses his nerve and skips town. Foley lands in Oklahoma on a rural patch of land and after a few years he ends up being a vintner and starting his own winery.

Andrew Foley is Mike's nephew. Andrew is a college student in NYC and takes a job with his mobbed-up childhood friends. They all see something they shouldn't have and Andrew's two friends are murdered. Andrew has never met Mike but his dad, Dan, is dead and Andrew has nowhere else to turn. Andrew heads to rural OK.

The killer, Nikki, needs to follow Andrew out to OK but is injured so she cajoles her sister into helping out. Through the novel we learn about Nikki's bizarre and fascinating family of professional, government affiliated killers.

Killers are sent to OK. The elderly Mike kills them. Mike tries to track down the source of Andrew's threat. Nikki faces assassins from her "agent" who is angry she did not complete the job. Big showdown among Nikki, Mike, and a married hit team in Nikki's New Orleans mansion.

Recurrences: 1- Gischler likes to use plenty of characters and has no problem with killing them off. 2- Gischler's seems fond of using settings he is familiar with. I don't know the guy but do know he lived in both Florida and Oklahoma and has set at least two books each in those states. 3- Deadly people facing even deadlier people. Example: In Pistol Poets the the drug guys from D.C. go up against the even deadlier thugs from New Orleans.

Excerpt:

When the phone rang, Anthony Minelli was banging this Long Island chick up the ass, so he was way too busy to answer. He let the machine get it.

Anthony gritted his teeth, thrusting hard back and forth, his balls swinging with the same rhythm as her floppy tits. She grunted with each thrust, high-pitched, her eyes crunched shut. Anthony felt his climax build and he banged harder, groaned hoarse and loud when he emptied himself into her.

He sat up, pulled out, and slapped her ass. "Nice stuff, Melinda."

"Melissa." She pulled the sheet over herself, closed her eyes, and sank into the pillow. "For Christ's sake, I told you ten times already."

EDIT: The final showdown in New Orleans was well done. It must not have been easy to organize that part of the story while involving the viewpoints of four different characters. That and keeping the suspense alive.