Harry Whittington was a cool cat

My recent introduction to Harry Whittington has included A Night for Screaming, A Ticket to Hell, and, best and most recently, Any Woman He Wanted.

Others have done what Whittington did in that book, but Whittington did it better. His embittered good guy is more embittered and more good. The revenge his protagonist exacts is more chilling.

The stock scene where the hero finds a naked or barely clothed woman in his room? Whittington does that better than anyone else, in part because I don't know anyone who could write dangerous, sordid sex scenes as well as Whittington does here, and the characters keep most of their clothes on.

But Any Woman He Wanted is more than just atmosphere. Whittington could plot, and some of the twists here surprised me.  I don't know where this novel ranks with hardcore Whittingtonians. Its odd ending might keep some from ranking it near the top. But Whittington integrates the ending smoothly into what had gone before, and what went before was enough to make the novel the best I've read in this young year.

(Read Woody Haut's Whittington retrospective.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2015