Everything I Consume: Kill Now, Pay Later

This was another Hard Case reprint. Kudos on a wonderfully lurid cover, yowza! I got a lot of stares of the subway for reading this one. The rest of the book wasn't so hot. The writer just seemed to keep throwing out plot and hoping it would stick, much like the women in the book who keep throwing themselves at detective Ben Gates. I mean, he doesn't even try with these women and they're all over him.

The story starts with Gates being drugged at a wedding he is working and involves blackmail, dirty movies, hidden identities and arson. It's a big mess and by the end we're not really sure how we got there. The beginning reminded me of The Gutting of Couffignal and the end reminder me of Rebecca, which are two better stories. So, a servicable read that I was able to trade quickly on paperbackswap.com.

My favorite part of the book was the blurb by Brett Haliday, creator of the Michael Shayne series. Author Robert Terrall was one of the ghost writers of the Michael Shayne series at this time so he may have blurbed his own book. Good for you, Robert!