s*x, Death, & Honey

Introduction by Ed Gorman

Introduction by Ed Gorman

“There are advantages to being a seven-foot tall, two-hundred-and-fifty pound Indian with a face like a leather football helmet, but this wasn’t one of them.” - Butch Quick

I need to start this with a story of my own. Several years ago I was hired to ghost a book about bounty hunters. The everyday kind. Not the Dog ones or any of the other melodramatic kind. The ones whose big signs you pass by in the area near the city and/or county lock ups. Regular folk in other words.

The celebrity I was working with had a show that went in the tank so the project was scrapped. But since I’d spent two months interviewing twenty-some bounty hunters about their jobs I had a decent idea about how they functioned in the world. Some surprises: A good share of bounty hunters are women. Male and female bounty hunters alike tend to ask the police to go along if they think there’s going to be trouble. Bounty hunters rely on computers even more than hackers and writers. Yes there’s always the prospect of danger but unless you’re involved in a reality show you try to hold it to a minimum.

Right off I liked Brian Knight’s version of a bounty hunter because it seemed realistic.

The other thing I liked, the thing that made this unique and fascinating story even better, was the voice. We read different books for different reasons. There are writers I read for plot. Their characters never strike me as more than spear carriers and there’s never much wit or insight in the psychology but by God I’m up till three a.m. turning those pages. Then there are writers I read for the way they present and understand their characters. Their plots may not dazzle me that much but I’m hooked on the human drama. And then there’s voice. To me this is the rarest of all writerly gifts.

All you have to read are two or three paragraphs and you know you’re reading Elmore Leonard. Or Ray Bradbury. Or Lucius Shepard. Brian Knight is young, but with s*x, Death & Honey he’s developing a voice all his own. For me the first person voice lends itself to a kind of ongoing confession. “I” narrative is filled with opinions whether the writer always intends them or not. And in opinions are truths about how the protagonist (and likely the writer) feels about the world he’s presenting.

I liked this book a great deal. I will now make sure to read everything else Brian Knight publishes if that tells you anything.

Oh—and the story itself. Funny thing. Every time I synopsize a book or movie on my blog readers b***h about how lame I am at boiling things down.

So let me say that Mr. Knight presents a) a plot that will keep you up late at night b) insights into various kinds of life that are rich with wisdom and wit, and c) and a voice you’ll remember for a long, long time to come.

Enjoy.

Ed Gorman,

January 2012