Head Games

You start a book like Head Games, set as it is in the fifties, and you wonder if it has to go so hard on period details like casual homophobia, and so often at that. The first novel written in Craig McDonald's Hector Lassiter series, although the seventh chronologically, starts well. People die indi......more

Pure pulp. Fun, but ultimately so pulpy that it often borders on the ridiculous. So when it attempts to capture actual human emotion, it is hard to take it seriously. One of my main problems with a lot of the new "pulp" and neo-noir books is that they are trying to be "pulp" and it shows. Most of the......more

Head, head, who's got the head? Ok, it really is a book about people chasing other people who may or may not have Pancho Villa's head. It really is, no kidding. And with that absurd premise Craig McDonald has written a book that actually works as a boisterous, thrill filled action adventure that is a......more

Cartoonish, antic take on James Crumley/James Carlos Blake A mix of historical figures and fictional like Waldrop, Kim Newman, and Ellroy. Perverse way to start a series. The ending pays off.......more

Ernest Hemingway would have made a heck of an action hero if he weren't actually a real person. Author Craig McDonald takes that general idea and runs with it in Head Games, a novel that introduces a Hemingwayesque writer hero named Hector Lassiter who walked much the same ground that Hemingway did......more