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Product Description
Pearce's ex needs to pay back twenty grand by midnight - or she's dead. Unless Pearce can stop the kill clock...A fast and furious underworld thriller by a master of Scottish noir. Barrington Stoke specialise in books for reluctant, struggling and dyslexic
From the Publisher
A short novel in the Most Wanted series from Barrington Stoke, specially written for emergent adult readers with a reading age of 8+.
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4 reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Fast and furious
27 Jan 2008
Format:Paperback
I started my copy of Kill Clock the morning after I received it in the mail and read it from cover to cover in 45 minutes! This is one hot little Scotch bonnet of a novella: short, sharp, and shocking. (Though maybe not as shocking as that scene in Hard Man.)
All of Guthrie's great attributes are on full display here, with none of the drawbacks that made Hard Man a disappointment for me. (Yeah, Pearce is still pretty dumb sometimes, but he's smart in all the right ways.)
Gordon Pearce (from Hard Man and Two-Way Split) is back once again. Kill Clock takes place a few years after the events in Hard Man, with Pearce out for the evening with his three-legged dog, Hilda. It looks like another case of "teach a prick a lesson" and then head home, but his ex-girlfriend Julie shows up with her two kids and a sob story: she needs 20,000 by midnight or she's toast.
Kill Clock was written for "adult reluctant readers" (with a reading age of 8+) and the simplicity of the text is pure fire. At 150 pages of large text -- with no complex conversations or descriptive digressions -- keeping the story moving is the key here, and Guthrie follows through with a tight little tale that takes an old suspense plot and polishes it up bright and shiny. And yet there's room for Guthrie to insert little bits of insight on how some people change when you haven't seen them in a long time, and some people stay exactly the same. This extra spice wasn't necessary for Kill Clock to kick serious arse, but it boosts this little tale into a fine addition to any dark crime fan's library.
All of Guthrie's great attributes are on full display here, with none of the drawbacks that made Hard Man a disappointment for me. (Yeah, Pearce is still pretty dumb sometimes, but he's smart in all the right ways.)
Gordon Pearce (from Hard Man and Two-Way Split) is back once again. Kill Clock takes place a few years after the events in Hard Man, with Pearce out for the evening with his three-legged dog, Hilda. It looks like another case of "teach a prick a lesson" and then head home, but his ex-girlfriend Julie shows up with her two kids and a sob story: she needs 20,000 by midnight or she's toast.
Kill Clock was written for "adult reluctant readers" (with a reading age of 8+) and the simplicity of the text is pure fire. At 150 pages of large text -- with no complex conversations or descriptive digressions -- keeping the story moving is the key here, and Guthrie follows through with a tight little tale that takes an old suspense plot and polishes it up bright and shiny. And yet there's room for Guthrie to insert little bits of insight on how some people change when you haven't seen them in a long time, and some people stay exactly the same. This extra spice wasn't necessary for Kill Clock to kick serious arse, but it boosts this little tale into a fine addition to any dark crime fan's library.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Make sure you read Two-Way Split first!
25 May 2008
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Kill Clock is a short novella follow-on to Allan Guthrie's excellent debut novel, Two-Way Split. You have to read the prequel first, otherwise many of the setups will make little sense to you. Moreover, if you read in the reverse order, your enjoyment of the longer book will be ruined by several spoilers.
Kill Clock moves faster than Two Way Split. It's like those old merry go rounds we tried to jump on as kids: you'd better to be ready to get yanked and pulled right away! Heck, it moves faster than almost any book that in my last year of reading.
There's Guthrie's traditional hard people and hard violence. As usual, the local color is excellent and the dialog is razor sharp.
This book ended in a satisfactory manner for me (can't say some of it's characters would feel the same way), but it ended far sooner than I would have liked. I'm eager awaiting Guthrie's next work.
Kill Clock moves faster than Two Way Split. It's like those old merry go rounds we tried to jump on as kids: you'd better to be ready to get yanked and pulled right away! Heck, it moves faster than almost any book that in my last year of reading.
There's Guthrie's traditional hard people and hard violence. As usual, the local color is excellent and the dialog is razor sharp.
This book ended in a satisfactory manner for me (can't say some of it's characters would feel the same way), but it ended far sooner than I would have liked. I'm eager awaiting Guthrie's next work.
A Good Short Story That Has Inspired Me to Give the Author's Novels a Go
24 Sep 2011
Format:Paperback
I love the fact that publishers are now publishing short stories as cheap stand alone books. If you're familiar with the Quick Reads publications, Kill Clock is a similar length. You can easily read this book in under an hour. With Kill Clock, it's an hour that will fly by. The tale starts off brilliant, with an ahole driver picking the wrong victim to bully and abuse for walking his three legged dog on a footpath as the idiot reversed his car without looking. That victim is a badarse named Gordon Pearce, and he very satisfactorily for the reader gives this jerk his comeuppance. Pearce is apparently a reoccurring character from some previous novels, but I had no problem following this story without having read those. I will certainly be checking out Guthrie's back catalogue as Pearce is a very interesting character indeed. As his dog Hilda, who not only lives with the burden of missing a leg, but also a girl's name being he's male.
After dealing with the rude motorist, Julie, a woman Pearce fell for years ago he conned ripped him off then disappeared asks him to hop in her car. Knowing the cops may well have been called by the car driver, or those that just enjoyed watching what was done to him, Pearce decides even though he doesn't want a thing to do with the woman, it's probably best he gets a ride out of the area. She tells him in between abusing her two rude little brats in the backseat, that their father owed an underworld figure 20 000 pounds, couldn't pay it and was given the ultimatum to kill someone else. He failed and is now dead, and Julie inherited the debt and her own clock deadline, which has passed. She wants his help. Pearce of course assumes she's conning him but doubt enters his mind when she's abducted, he's shot at and he's left with the brats and the guy on her phone tells Pearce if he doesn't pay the debt by the deadline she's dead.
It's a great quick tale, but some readers may find Julie's swearing at her children in the car pages a bit uncomfortable reading.
After dealing with the rude motorist, Julie, a woman Pearce fell for years ago he conned ripped him off then disappeared asks him to hop in her car. Knowing the cops may well have been called by the car driver, or those that just enjoyed watching what was done to him, Pearce decides even though he doesn't want a thing to do with the woman, it's probably best he gets a ride out of the area. She tells him in between abusing her two rude little brats in the backseat, that their father owed an underworld figure 20 000 pounds, couldn't pay it and was given the ultimatum to kill someone else. He failed and is now dead, and Julie inherited the debt and her own clock deadline, which has passed. She wants his help. Pearce of course assumes she's conning him but doubt enters his mind when she's abducted, he's shot at and he's left with the brats and the guy on her phone tells Pearce if he doesn't pay the debt by the deadline she's dead.
It's a great quick tale, but some readers may find Julie's swearing at her children in the car pages a bit uncomfortable reading.
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