East Baton Rouge Parish Library

Firewind, Bill Pronzini

eng

no index present

fiction

Firewind

18990241

Bill Pronzini

An Evans novel of the West

Three outlaws arrive in the country town of Big Tree, Calif., on a blazing hot day of a long dry summer. A huge shipment of munitions is a-sittin' in Big Tree just a-waitin' to be stole--and they're a-goin' to do it. But the burglary gets bungled, an explosion sets the town on fire and there is only one way out of the parched valley for the townsfolk--by train. That way lies peril, however, for not only is the only locomotive in some disrepair, but the munitions are on board, and the fire is spreading fast--as fast as the train is racing. Pronzini, a pulp aficionado, adds to the race-against-time tension of his homespun stage with sideline subplots: a guilt-ridden love-triangle, an outlaw's hysterical memories of his father's death in a fire, a one-legged man's bitterness and misguided heroism--building to an acceptable, if rather bland, ending. While not attempting to transcend the genre, the author has added to it with his usual professionalism