Bleeding Hearts

Oh, the blessings of being an author with too much time on his hands. I can just picture Ian Rankin sitting in the house (farm? cottage?) he and his wife bought in rural Dordogne, having whizzed through the manuscript for yet another increasingly well-written John Rebus novel and - having left behind all other employment across the British Channel and neither inclined to carpentry nor gardening - feeling his mind growing restless, in need of occupation. Now, wouldn't you have started looking for another outlet for your creative energy had you been in his spot? The result of the aforementioned process, which Rankin describes in the foreword to a 2000 (alas, British-only!) compilation uniting all three volumes, were a series of thrillers he wrote under the pseudonym Jack Harvey: Jack for his newborn son, Harvey for his wife's maiden name. After a good, albeit a bit uneven beginning with "Witch Hunt" - the story of a female assassin hunted by agents of the British and the French governments - things really shift into high gear with the second Jack Harvey novel, "Bleeding Hearts." Unusual is, already, its protagonist: another assassin, but this time a large part of the story is told from his perspective, and the presumed "bad guy's" first person narrative magnetically draws you in, until you end up rooting for *him* - the cool, slick, smart, presumably rather goodlooking operator - and not for the ex-cop-turned-P.I. who's been on his heels for years, and compared to whom even a classic noir gumshoe would almost look like an epitome of innocence (besides being a good deal slimmer). What is more, the story's enigmatic anti-hero suffers from a birth defect both supremely ironic and potentially fatal in his line of work: hemophilia ... Mike Weston's nickname in professional circles on both sides of the law is "Demolition Man," for the small set of explosives he plants near the site of each job in lieu of a calling card. After a few jobs have gone anything but smoothly (or so rumor has it), he needs a good, clean hit to restore his reputation. Just that seems to be handed to him with the assassination of a reporter about to embark on a story involving a religious cult with the peaceful-sounding name "Disciples of Love." And initially everything goes as planned: the target is where she is supposed to be exactly at the time she is supposed to be there, and he nails her with a shot into the heart; another calling card of his. But then things start to happen that he hasn't been planning for, and in his view there's only one explanation - he's been set up. So while normally he would leave the place of his hit as quickly and silently as possible, now he has to retrace the job to its origins, find out who was behind it and who wants him out of the way. Assisted by Belinda, the daughter of his trusted, reclusive Yorkshire gun supplier, he soon finds himself on the trace of a group of ruthless people who actually do make our Mike look well-neigh moral in compa

Whether or not Ian Rankin's John Rebus police procedurals or his stand-alone works are seen as "literary" is totally irrelevant to the elements that make all of them exciting, entertaining, often funny, well plotted and a cut above the ordinary. His ironic twists accelerate the pace and keep readers breathlessly carried along by the action. BLEEDING HEARTS is the newest thriller to appear in the United States --- it was published in England in 1994 under the pseudonym Jack Harvey. In it, we follow the trajectories of the lives of two men: an assassin of international repute, and a former NYPD cop now turned private eye who has vowed to track down the infamous killer and execute him. The story opens in a hotel bar in England where me meet the killer, Michael Weston, having a drink with a passing acquaintance. In his first-person narration he tells readers that his mark has only three more hours to live, while opining to his companion: "You know what it's like these days --- only the toughest are making it. No room for bleeding hearts though of course in my line of work bleeding hearts are the business." Today his assignment is to shoot a woman who will be leaving a particular hotel, at a particular time, wearing a particular dress patterned in yellow and blue. He has no idea who she is and doesn't really care. Later, as the police show up at almost the precise second he pulls the trigger, he can't believe what has just transpired. How could they be here so quickly? he wonders. His ad-hoc plan to leave the scene is to call 999 and ask for an ambulance because, he tells them, he's "a severe hemophiliac" who has been involved in a terrible accident and his head is bleeding. Weston in fact is a hemophiliac, albeit a mild one, and this twist adds verisimilitude to the character that is more cerebral than physical. As happens in life, his illness is a curse and a blessing --- this time it is his means of escape and soon he is free. He now can ponder what went wrong; this was supposed to be an easy hit. His conclusion: he had to have been set up --- but by whom, and why? Weston must escape to safety and makes his way to an isolated farm where Max and his daughter Belle live. They deal in arms of every sort and sell to anyone with enough cash to pay for them. Weston needs their support and access to their cache. He rests a bit and plans an assault on a so-far phantom enemy. Weston has always worked through a middleman, the gunrunner Max. He never wanted to get "personally involved" with his victims or paymasters. Death is only the result of the job he has to do; it is a fact of life but not necessarily one he cares to analyze. He is very smart, very careful, very dedicated and very lethal. He looks like an average man of a certain age who is personable but reveals nothing about himself to anyone. Meanwhile, in Vine Street police station, Chief Inspector Bob Broome comes to the conclusion that Weston, dubbed the "Demolition Man," is the shooter. But

In a departure from his Inspector Rebus series, author Rankin pursues his taste for blood and the hunt (ie, "Blood Hunt," "Witch Hunt," "Let It Bleed," etc.) with a new set of characters and a pseudonym (Jack Harvey) for Bleeding Heart's original publication in 1994. This exploration into new thriller territory for him was published that year in the U.K. and presents a rather clever variation in the killer-for-hire scenario--worth the reprint for a wider audience. Not only is Michael Weston a sniper assassin who commands the big bucks for his unerring heart shot (as opposed to the standard head shot) but he's also been branded the "Demolition Man" or "D-man" for his tactic of employing a bomb well placed and timed to divert his target and protectors before his fatal kill. And, differences from the norm don't stop there. Weston, a killing machine, is a hemophiliac, a bleeder. The job that sets this journey off is a contract on Eleanor Ricks, a TV reporter, as she emerges from a building in which she's conducted an interview. Curiously, he's been told by his anonymous employer what she'll be wearing so that he can spot his quarry in a crowd that includes more than one VIP. In fact, the nature of his employ and its aftermath raises questions that demand answers. Any one of those VIPs would have been the more likely target so, as the news stories postulate, could it have been a bad shot, a mistaken aim? Hit man Weston, of course, knows better. He doesn't do mistaken aims. But even he is wondering about this particular target. It's not his job to question such matters since it's only about the money and he gets plenty. But how did the contractor know what the victim would be wearing? And why did the police arrive at the scene so quickly that he almost didn't get away from his firing place? Was this a setup by an enemy? This sniper-assassin won't rest until he gets the answers. He might even have taken his last contract. Someone else is equally interested, though from an altogether different angle. Overweight but astute private detective Hoffer has been hunting Weston for years for an employer who will not forget the death of his daughter. The task to avenge her has been Hoffer's long term, well paid mission, and with this new killing new lines of inquiry open up. In fact, he's going to get as close as he ever has to closing his case, but the outcome will be anything but the predictable one. The dual chase takes Weston and Hoffer into a pursuit that covers a wide geographical area and many a misleading clue. In his jump from London to Texas and back to Yorkshire, Weston will change names and hook up with his old weapons dealer pal Max in Texas who always provides a lesson in exotic weaponry and ammo. Max's spunky and gorgeous daughter Bel (née Belinda) provides herself as a partner/companion in Weston's tracking of a pseudo-religious cult whose leader he suspects is his mystery contractor. There's enough here to keep the pace flowing and the bodi

Oh, the blessings of being an author with too much time on his hands. I can just picture Ian Rankin sitting in the house (farm? cottage?) he and his wife bought in rural Dordogne, having whizzed through the manuscript for yet another increasingly well-written John Rebus novel and - having left behind all other employment across the British Channel and neither inclined to carpentry nor gardening - feeling his mind growing restless, in need of occupation. Now, wouldn't you have started looking for another outlet for your creative energy had you been in his spot? The result of the aforementioned process, which Rankin describes in the foreword to a 2000 (alas, British-only!) compilation uniting all three volumes, were a series of thrillers he wrote under the pseudonym Jack Harvey: Jack for his newborn son, Harvey for his wife's maiden name. After a good, albeit a bit uneven beginning with "Witch Hunt" - the story of a female assassin hunted by agents of the British and the French governments - things really shift into high gear with the second Jack Harvey novel, "Bleeding Hearts." Unusual is, already, its protagonist: another assassin, but this time a large part of the story is told from his perspective, and the presumed "bad guy's" first person narrative magnetically draws you in, until you end up rooting for *him* - the cool, slick, smart, presumably rather goodlooking operator - and not for the ex-cop-turned-P.I. who's been on his heels for years, and compared to whom even a classic noir gumshoe would almost look like an epitome of innocence (besides being a good deal slimmer). What is more, the story's enigmatic anti-hero suffers from a birth defect both supremely ironic and potentially fatal in his line of work: hemophilia ... Mike Weston's nickname in professional circles on both sides of the law is "Demolition Man," for the small set of explosives he plants near the site of each job in lieu of a calling card. After a few jobs have gone anything but smoothly (or so rumor has it), he needs a good, clean hit to restore his reputation. Just that seems to be handed to him with the assassination of a reporter about to embark on a story involving a religious cult with the peaceful-sounding name "Disciples of Love." And initially everything goes as planned: the target is where she is supposed to be exactly at the time she is supposed to be there, and he nails her with a shot into the heart; another calling card of his. But then things start to happen that he hasn't been planning for, and in his view there's only one explanation - he's been set up. So while normally he would leave the place of his hit as quickly and silently as possible, now he has to retrace the job to its origins, find out who was behind it and who wants him out of the way. Assisted by Belinda, the daughter of his trusted, reclusive Yorkshire gun supplier, he soon finds himself on the trace of a group of ruthless people who actually do make our Mike look well-neigh moral in

This is what used to be called a "rattling good yarn".It's a tale of a hired assassin, a crack-shot sniper, who travels the world, killing people for payment...a cold-blooded murderer who also happens to be a haemophiliac. Strangely enough, you find yourself empathising with this man as the story proceeds, which it does at a cracking pace. Michael Weston is hired by an unknown client to shoot a TV news journalist. He successsfully carries out his assignment but things start to go awry and he realises that he is being pursued by an old adversary, Leo Hohher, a former NY cop, now a private investigator. Michael visits Max Harrison, an old friend living deep in the country, to buy guns and ammunition and meets his daughter Bel- gorgeous and a crack shot. While Michael and Bel are off on an errand, unknown criminals enter the house and behead Max, leaving the body to be found by Bel and Michael. The chase takes them to the US where they connect with a weird and suspect religious cult whose leader has unidentifiable sources of income. Even though the hero of Bleeding Hearts is a thoroughly amoral character, one can't help but hope that he comes good in the end and survives the shoot-outs.