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    The Painted Gun
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    The Painted Gun
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    The Painted Gun
    Ebook269 pages4 hours

    The Painted Gun

    By Bradley Spinelli

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Nominated for a 2018 Shamus Award in Best Original Private Eye (paperback)!

    "[In] this tricky and delightfully surprising crime novel...Spinelli deftly segues from one genre to another--from hard-boiled noir to paranoid thriller, puzzle mystery (with each and every riddle logically explained), spy caper, and ultimately to something evocative of Bogart and Bacall. Spinelli is definitely a talent to watch."
    --Publishers Weekly

    "An unofficial San Francisco shamus whose tale is set in 1997 but whose heart is stuck in 1947 hunts for the world's most elusive missing person...'I keep meeting people who wind up dead,' aptly observes the narrator/hero...If you'd like more where that came from, Spinelli is your man."
    --Kirkus Reviews

    "Treasure the intriguing mystery and its haunting solution."
    --Booklist

    "A neat little post-modern mash-up of Chandler and Hammett...[Spinelli's] got wit and style up the wazoo."
    --Thrilling Detective

    "You can believe the man that wrote that read his Chandler and maybe his Macdonald as well."
    --Mystery File

    "A fun romp of an old-school detective novel with a few post-modern tweaks. It's full of fist fights, shoot outs, and wise cracks, taking a few peculiar twists that prove many times to be poignant."
    --MysteryPeople

    "A classic noir...Spinelli manages to keep us on our toes."
    --Pif Magazine

    "A fantastic read, plenty of twists and turns...Highly recommended."
    --Col's Criminal Library

    "It's classic noir with a little technology that turns into an international thriller. Though it's a dangerous leap mixing both genres, author Bradley Spinelli succeedsThe Painted Gun will keep readers hooked at every page."
    --Underrated Reads

    "One of the best aspects of The Painted Gun is its sense of place. The seedier sides of San Francisco are brought to life with all the expected characters...A wonderful diversion."
    --Confessions of a Cyberlibrarian

    "An intriguing read."
    --Life Within the Pages

    "The Painted Gun is hardboiled like they don't make anymore. Whiplash twists, razor-sharp prose, an addictive narrative--I couldn't read it fast enough."
    --Rob Hart, author of South Village

    It's 1997 at the dawn of the digital age in San Francisco. Ex-journalist and struggling alcoholic David "Itchy" Crane's fledgling "information consultancy" business is getting slowly buried by bad luck, bad decisions, and the growing presence of the Internet. Before he can completely self-destruct, a private investigator offers him fifty grand to find a missing girl named Ashley. Crane takes the job because the money’s right and because the only clue to her disappearance is a dead-on oil portrait of Crane himself--painted by the mysterious missing girl whom he has never met. As Crane's search for Ashley becomes an obsession, he stumbles upon a series of murders for which he begins to fear he's being framed...

    With pitch-perfect dialogue, an exquisitely crafted plot, and a stylized, deadpan nod to classic hard-boiled writers like James Ellroy, Elmore Leonard, and Dashiell Hammett, The Painted Gun introduces Bradley Spinelli as a force to be reckoned with in contemporary noir fiction.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAkashic Books
    Release dateMar 7, 2017
    ISBN9781617755057
    Unavailable
    The Painted Gun
    Author

    Bradley Spinelli

    Bradley Spinelli is the author of the novel Killing Williamsburg, and the writer/director of the film #AnnieHall, which the Village Voice called “fascinating.” He contributes regularly to Bedford + Bowery and lives in Brooklyn. The Painted Gun is his latest novel. Visit his website at 13spinelli.com.

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    Reviews for The Painted Gun

    4/5

    20 ratings10 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Wow...I'm stunned...this book was not what I expected. Wonderful story. One of those can't put it down kind of books. Cook your own meals. Do your own laundry. Clean your own space.....this girl is reading for the next few hours. I would definitely like more books from this author. I don't like spoilers so let me just say KUDOS to Bradley Spinelli ....job very well done!!! My mother is reading it now so I can say you now have 2 new fans!!!!
    • 5/5
      I cannot recommend this book enough. A fantastic hard-boiled story taking place in San Francisco in the late 90s. We have an engaging narrator, (an information broker whose journalist career was ruined and his current business is threatened by the internet), a intriguing plot (a missing persons case that involves portraits of our narrator), and a driving plot with plenty of action along the way. Lots of surprises throughout. I look forward for more from Bradley Spinelli.
    • 3/5
      I received this for free from Early Reviewers.I enjoyed this book. The premise is a P.I. gets involved in a missing person case but it winds up he is the one trying not to get killed. Everyone who interacts with the main character winds up dead and he has to figure out why. It kept me interested to see what would happen next. By the way I really did not care for the history of Guatemala (skimmed through that section). I felt that was not needed in the storyline. I did not guess the ending and was pleasantly surprised.
    • 4/5
      I wasn't sure what to expect of this, but I grew to enjoy spending time with Itchy. I'm hoping we shall see more of him in the future! I was afraid it would be too old school crime for me (Chandler era) but surprisingly it was very well written and kept me reading, definitely recommend reading this!
    • 4/5
      An ex-journalist, David "Itchy" Crane, receives a call from a LA investigator, McCaffrey to investigate a missing person case of a profile painter Ashley. To enhance Itchy's interest take this case, he advances Itchy a $25.000, with not much information to go on, other than her name and the paintings of himself painted by Ashley. As his investigation takes off, individuals related to his investigation start showing up murdered. Will Itchy ever find Ashley before something happens to him too?
    • 4/5
      I really liked the plot line of this book, but I felt the main character David 'Itchy' Crane was one of the most bland characters ever created. I didn't feel I really got to see what motivated him; most of the novel he just wanted to know what happened. However; the side characters made up for this as they all had interesting backgrounds and personalities. I wish Bradley Spinelli would have done more with elusive artist, Ashley, because she seemed like an awesome character, but all that we're really told about her is that she is hot and makes art. I also wasn't always a big fan of the language. I don't mind rougher language, but I felt at times it was just written to make the characters sound bad. In my, opinion, this made the dialogue feel unrealistic and detract even more from already bland characters. All that aside, I still loved this novel. I obsessively read through it in two days and I was so invested in the actual mystery. It kept me guessing and I really enjoyed the different settings. I also loved the computer geeks reaction to what we would consider old technology (the book is set in 1997 so what we consider normal is revolutionary in their minds). Overall I thought this was a decent book and I will keep an eye out for more by this author and I hope to see him improve his writing.
    • 4/5
      First person narrated murder mysteries are not my favorite reading material. The Painted Gun seemed to begin like others I’ve read; the introduction to Guy Noir from Prairie Home Companion sounding in my head. After the fifth page, I realized that the author, Bradley Spinelli, had me hooked with the story. I couldn’t put it down, me with a murder mystery! Having finished the book on the second night of reading, I felt regret that the nonstop action had ended. If Spinelli’s writing is typical for this genre, I’m not sure why I shied away from it for so long.The story is about Itchy Crane, an ‘information services” specialist, who is the unknowing victim of a Guatemalan murder for hire ring. They need him alive! Crane bills himself as someone to can dig up information on anyone or anything. Despite his touted skills, he is frustrated by a seeming inability to find any information on the girl, Ashley, he was hired to find. Everyone he thinks might lead him to finding her winds up dead. Crane doesn’t discover anything about this girl, nor the extent of his connection to her, until close to the end of the book. By then, Crane has for Ashley based solely on her artistic depictions of him and on her sincere, yet indirect, efforts to save him. The story’s action comes from the conflict between every group looking for her; a rogue CIA contract assassin, the FBI, and Crane.Assassinations never go as planned newbies, and Crane is no assassin. Unfortunately for Crane, the head of the Guatemalan assassination organization made him a no option offer; travel to Central America, kill the organization’s rogue assassin, the same one who has it in for Crane, and your life will be yours again. Despite slipping on wet paving stones as he’s about to pull the trigger, Crane manages to complete the deed. The book ends with him vacationing in a cabin on a picturesque volcanic lake waiting for Ashley, his love interest, to fly in from San Francisco to join him. Life is good!The book was fast paced and kept me reading despite eye strain warning me that the hour was late. If you’re looking for arresting action, this is the book.
    • 4/5
      A ‘Thank You’ to Akashic Books for this advance reading copy of THE PAINTED GUN by Bradley Spinelli.A noir mystery. Very gritty, crisp, classic-style narrative. Very atmospheric - exudes a great sense of place (in both California and Guatemala). Unpredictable, deranged, shady characters. An international plot line.1997 San Fransisco. Disgraced, self-destructive, ex-journalist, David ‘Itchy’ Crane, receives a call from a LA investigator, McCaffrey. McCaffrey will send a $25,000 cash advance to Crane in exchange for opening up a missing person case. His instructions - Find Ashley. The first name and a painting is all Crane has to go on. Extraordinarily, the painting is a perfect likeness of himself, by an artist (Ashley) he has never met.The narrative ‘kept me on my toes’ - it was fast-paced and full of unexpected twists. I liked the tie-in with Guatemala and United Fruit.An excellent mystery noir.
    • 4/5
      One part Chandler, a shake of Hammett and Spillane and a dash of Eric Ambler — Bradley Spinelli's noir thriller The Painted Gun is a crazy hard-boiled page-turner. I missed a night's sleep racing through fin de siècle California until the final twisted resolution in a Guatamalan paradise. There are characters in the book that would make Pynchon smile. Hit men, beautiful women, tired, bored cops, genius computer geeks and a hero who had one too many last night, every night, and a bizarre mystery that only he can solve. The Painted Gun is a tight, smart read — worth a night up to greet the dawn.
    • 4/5
      I've come to associate Akashic Books (the publisher) with solidly decent Noir, and with The Painted Gun, their track record continues. Bradley Spinelli takes a genre that has been arguably beat to death and infuses new life into it--first, by setting his tale in a somewhat disused time period for detective fiction (the early 90's). Second, by throwing a neat hook at the reader from the get-go (see the book's accompanying back-cover blurb to see what I mean). He adheres to most of the tried and true tropes of the genre while still projecting a voice all his own. Altogether a great read.