Man on a Leash

✍ Scribed by Charles Williams

• Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Year: 1973
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 104 KB
• Category: Fiction
• ISBN: 0399112197

✦ Synopsis

A son searches for the men who killed his mysterious father

Even at sixty-six, Gunnar Romstead was a tough old salt. It took several men to bring him down, and even after they’d bound his feet and hands he was still a threat. But finally the man who’d survived waterfront brawls, World War II, and countless stormy nights at sea died on his knees—shot through the back of the head.

Looking for answers, his son Eric comes to the barren California town where Gunnar breathed his last. He hardly knew the old man, but he can’t believe his father was killed in a botched drug deal. Somewhere in California is a massive shipment of heroin and a quarter of a million dollars, and if Eric finds them he will uncover the truth. But for a boy who grew up loving his father from afar, the truth may hurt even more than a bullet.

Review

“Williams is a careful and ingenious performer. . . . The writing is extremely sophisticated.” — The New York Times

“Relying on wit, humor and ingenious plotting, Williams’s characters constantly attempt to outwit the system.” —Woody Haut, author of Pulp Culture

“One of the neglected hardboiled geniuses . . . his novels were perfect little gems.” —Joe R. Lansdale, author of Savage Season

About the Author

Charles Williams (1909–1975) was one of the preeminent authors of American crime fiction. Born in Texas, he dropped out of high school to enlist in the US Merchant Marine, serving for ten years before leaving to work in the electronics industry. At the end of World War II, Williams began writing fiction while living in San Francisco. The success of his backwoods noir Hill Girl (1951) allowed him to quit his job and write fulltime.

Williams’s clean and somewhat casual narrative style distinguishes his novels—which range from hard-boiled, small-town noir to suspense thrillers set at sea and in the Deep South. Although originally published by pulp fiction houses, his work won great critical acclaim, with Hell Hath No Fury (1953) becoming the first paperback original to be reviewed by legendary New York Times critic Anthony Boucher. Many of his novels were adapted for the screen, such as Dead Calm(published in 1963) and Don’t Just Stand There! (published in 1966), for which Williams wrote the screenplay. Williams died in California in 1975.