REMI BONE, funny...serious...fun the way the best of crime novels can be

REMI BONE
WILLIAM L. MYERS Jr.
Oceanview Publishing (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$18.99 paperback, available now

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Single father Remi Bone knows that his daughter’s Ivy League education will cost an arm and a leg . . . or a few bodies

Remi Bone is a good guy. He’s a hardworking mechanic, a single father raising his late wife’s daughter, and now, he’s dying of heart failure. But his daughter Kayla was just admitted to the college of her dreams. How will she afford college with two dead parents?

Before he dies, Remi decides to stockpile as much money as possible for Kayla’s future. When a chance to participate in a lucrative gun-for-hire scheme arises, Remi, out of desperation, agrees to execute a hit on a shady Philadelphia drug dealer.

This becomes only the first of several murders Remi is hired for, and soon, Remi’s the most sought-after hitman in town—both by his clients and by the police. He leaves investigators little to work with, but ear witnesses identify him by the phrase he recites before each “Tick tock says the clock, time’s up . . . ”With the police catching on to the “Tick Tock Killer,” Remi has to work quickly to earn enough money for Kayla’s school—all while ensuring he dies with a clean record. Tick tock.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: The "good-guy-does-'bad'-for-good" trope is fun to read. I like Breaking Bad despite Walter White's odiousness, so no matter Remi's traits I was ready to give him a fair shake. Turns out I like him fine, he's a stand-up guy who faces an ugly death by thinking of the child he loves not his own little self.

The uncharitable might also say he's in denial, running away from the end of a life he thinks is not worth living anymore. I think maybe both are true, and neither are as complete explanations as Remi's character supports. Author Myers, a lawyer by trade, knows how to put on layers of implication and unstated emotional truths. Remi turning to being a hit-man, one who kills only the ones who need killin' as I often say, is factually stockpiling money for his stepdaughter's future. But why turn to it now? Because, with a deadline (!) fast approaching he isn't going to face consequences. He can do the right, but illegal, thing. He has courage at last.

Why not before? And how is this pile of suddenly-acquired money he's leaving Kayla going to be explained to the IRS without causing her huge problems? Are the Authorities and the bosses ignorant of who he is? It's the reason I give this read over four stars that the answer is no to all these questions. Remi's, umm, sordid past isn't foregrounded to the point one thinks he's expiating sins, but is added to explain things that enable him to turn forty-five degrees from a law-abiding life.

What kept the fifth star from manifesting was an ending so rushed, so chaotic, that I felt I was watching a montage of Pulp Fiction, Bullitt, and The French Connection. I'm always about the dismount as much as the story-dressage. I think this book, at under 300pp, might've benefited from ~50pp more to wind things up more comprehensibly. Still a ride I'm glad I took. I think anyone who enjoys a leavening of humor in their crime fiction, a load of pathos, and a really easy-to-root-for protagonist will enjoy this trip on Philly's dark side.