Skip to main content

Severance Package - Review

My one word review is followed by my slightly more in depth musings on Severance Package.

AWESOME! A tiny secret is that I enjoyed The Wheelman but not to the degree that others did. I can only really recall one passage where our mute 'lead' effects an escape by blowing up a propane tank. Good stuff there. In my defense that was about a hundred books ago. The Blonde never really clicked with me and as far as I am concerned it is all my fault. I have only re-read one book in my life, The Great Gatsby, I am nearly certain that the The Blonde will be the second. As for Severance Package I dug the he-hi-hell out of this book. The book contains an ever amount of escalating violence that strangely becomes only more hilarious.

The basic plot revolves around a Saturday Morning meeting to announce that the office is closing up shop and the employees all need to find new jobs as casket fillers for eternity. It is kind of like The Breakfast Club if Principal Vernon had announced that everyone was going to die in the library and the Alley Sheedy character was a Ninja trained assassin instead of Goth-Chick nut bag.

The trick for Mr. Swierczynski is to deliver on the promise of the plot. Everyone is going to die. GO! It rarely happens that an author can delivery on that kind of promise. High moments that are undercut by boring transitions and a love story that goes nowhere. Mr. Swierczynski avoids those traps to turn in a high octane freight train of excitement. How is that for a blurb!

I enjoyed all 263 pages of this book and I look forward to Mr. Swierczynski next book.

Hmmmm..... what's that? 264? What about 264? Oh 264 pages in Severance Package.

Yeah.... I'm pretending that last page didn't happen. Good books should infuriate you sometimes, so I am giving the last page a pass.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Very Best of Mr. Dennis Lehane

I thought this post would appear in October. Ya, know when SHUTTER ISLAND: THE MOVIE was supposed to be released. And then it wasn't. Something about Leo not being able to do 'press' for the movie. Doesn't really matter the reason, a February release date has one of those fancy Hollywood meanings: Not Good. Look I'll be honest, I didn't connect with SHUTTER ISLAND. I loved the fifties setting, the haunted house atmosphere, and impending doom of the Hurricane. Even the set-up of the story was intriguing but how it played out just didn't work for me. Some interesting characters, a bunch of great set pieces, but the ending announces itself with an expected, thud that went nowhere. Am I still going to the movie? Its Lehane, Scorsese, Leo, and Ruffalo of course I am. Anyway the list. 8. Prayers for Rain - 1999 The last Kenzie-Gennaro book follows our heroes as they investigate a guy who is terrorizing women into committing suicide. The book played like an episo...

Small Mercies - The Return of Dennis Lehane

 A time honored tradition at The Hungry Detective HQ is to perform the twice annual, and largely ceremonial, 'Dennis Lehane New book 20XX" Google search. Nothing comes up on his long abandoned Website, except notification of the script work for his television and film projects.  Grousing aside, 2022 was a big year for Mr. Lehane. BLACK BIRD, a show he created, played on Apple+ to solid acclaim. The show's star, Paul Walter Hauser, won a Golden Globe. But despite that I have yet to watch it. Not for any other reason than I am a movie person more than a TV person. The TV I do watch is watched in an arcane order that is difficult to decipher and even more baffling to explain. Short story, I need to watch ANDOR [Editor's Note: Slow going on ANDOR despite everyone telling me it is amazing.] And then BLACK BIRD, or maybe SLOW HORSES. I'll get there...  Anyway at the dead end of 2022, I did the search. Found out he wrote a book. SMALL MERCIES . I was excited to hear it. I...

A Fogotten Post: A Remembrance

[Editor's Note: Started this missive, never came back to it. Still relevant, I suppose.] I am reading MURDER IN OLD BOMBAY by Nev Marsh. This was... technically still is... on my to buy pile. In the before time... the overwhelming to be read pile time... I would have bought this and thrown it on the shelf to read in the near or more likely distant future. I hope I like it enough to buy the second in the series. Buying a book is fun, buying a book that is good is better. [Editor's Note: Abandoned this book, unfinished.] BLACKTOP WASTELAND - S.A. COSBY So glad I didn't buy this last summer. Good decision to put off buying and reading what would have certainly been one of the best books of the year. New goal for the remaining 2021 calendar. Don't be dumb. Buy Mr. Cosby's follow up and read day one! [Editor's Note: I did buy a signed copy of RAZORBLADE  TEARS, meanwhile B.W. won every award, except the Edgar where it wasn't even nominated!? Also Signed firsts of...