Description: In Slow Bullet, Army veteran Clark McKay is searching for the truth behind his best friend's murder. This search takes him across the globe, where he meets a multitude of characters and is forced to wade through the murky Washington DC waters of corruption. Clark McKay wants to find a murderer... but what happens when he uncovers so much more?
Review Quotes:
Slow Bullet by John L. Lansdale Reviews
Publishers Weekly
Mickey Spillane fans will welcome this page-turner from Lansdale (Zombie Gold). During the Vietnam War, Capt. Robert Spicier saved the life of a wounded fellow solider, Clark McKay, by carrying McKay on his back as he "outran Charlie to [the American] lines, firing an M-16 over his shoulder to slow them down."
In the present, McKay, now a retired army colonel, is stunned to learn from Spicier's son that Spicier appears to have murdered his wife before killing himself in their Washington, D.C., home. Spicier was working for the CIA, so anything's possible. McKay, who's "good at killing people," resolves to find the truth behind the tragedy, despite his inexperience as an investigator. He soon learns, to his peril, that the bad guys are determined to locate an archived file that Spicier may have taken from the CIA. Lansdale effectively delays revealing the novel's big secret until the end. Those who like their thrillers with a heavy dose of violent action will be satisfied.
Bill Crider's Pop Culture Magazine
Slow Bullet is a straight-ahead thriller. When Vietnam vet Clark McKay is notified of the "suicide" of a friend, he knows it's murder, and he sets out to find the killer. The macguffin is a CIA file that the friend supposedly sent to McKay, although McKay doesn't have it and doesn't know where it is. Not that it matters. He becomes the target of everybody from the CIA to the mob.
Lansdale tells the story in a stripped-down, bare-bones style, and it's almost all action with a high body count. I lost count of the bodies, in fact, and I even lost count of the number of times McKay is ambushed or attacked. Things never slow down. If there was ever a book where the protagonist faced one damned thing after another in rapid succession, this is the book. If you're looking for character development, you've come to the wrong place. This isn't about character; it's about action, and there's plenty of that. Check it out.