{"id":2753,"date":"2021-03-30T11:35:43","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T18:35:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=2753"},"modified":"2021-03-30T11:35:43","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T18:35:43","slug":"the-boy-is-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=2753","title":{"rendered":"The boy is back"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bob Moyer takes a look at the latest book by one of America’s most respected mystery and thriller writers.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer<\/p>\n

EDDIE\u2019S BOY. By Thomas Perry. Mysterious Press. 274 pages. $26.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Thomas Perry never fails to produce a pager-turner. His protagonists, whether in stand-alone novels or series installments, Native American females or Boston-bred white guys, go about their likable and lethal ways at breakneck speed. Perry fans cheer them on, eagerly awaiting the next clever means of maiming or dispatching the bad guys\u2014and wondering why they enjoy all the mayhem so much.<\/p>\n

Eddie\u2019s Boy<\/em>\u00a0continues the story of The\u00a0Butcher’s Boy<\/em>, one of the early entries in the Perry oeuvre.\u00a0This is the third installment in The Butcher’s Boy<\/em> series over a 39-year period. The \u201cboy\u201d was brought up and trained in two trades by Eddie \u2014butcher and hit man. He\u2019s been living in retirement in England until someone wants him dead. When the reader first sees him, he\u2019s driving to the airport with three dead bodies strapped into seat belts, and a fourth one in the trunk. He has to get away, but he doesn\u2019t know from whom. After another half-dozen bodies, he decides to go back to the U.S., where obviously someone wants him gone.<\/p>\n

When he gets to the States, he not only returns to his home, but he also takes a trip into the past. As he tracks down who put out the hit on him, he travels through the past with his ersatz parent and protector, Eddie. Besides an entertaining trip into the training methods involved in being an assassin\u2014how to use a garrote, what part of the body to put a knife into, how to shoot with two .45 pistols at once \u2014 he comes across a lesson that has kept him alive: \u201cHe knew that what Eddie had been teaching him was about living,\u201d not killing. He was an expert at staying alive, and that\u2019s what Perry\u00a0puts into those pages we turn with avidity. He\u2019s not just knocking people off; he\u2019s working his way back home. That\u2019s what we\u2019re cheering.<\/p>\n

And, many machinations and funerals later, he makes it. He\u2019s getting a little long in the tooth, but don\u2019t put it past Perry to bring Eddie\u2019s Boy<\/em> back one more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bob Moyer takes a look at the latest book by one of America’s most respected mystery and thriller writers. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer EDDIE\u2019S BOY. By Thomas Perry. Mysterious Press. 274 pages. $26. Thomas Perry never fails to produce a pager-turner. His protagonists, whether in stand-alone novels or series installments, Native American females or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[426,14],"tags":[1190,652,410],"class_list":["post-2753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-popular-fiction","category-thriller-suspense","tag-eddies-boy","tag-thomas-perry","tag-thrillers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2753"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2755,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753\/revisions\/2755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}