Harry Hunsicker: The Next Time You Die
They say the state of Texas has a logic of its own. Everything is a little different in Texas, a little bigger, a little edgier than most places. Your reporter was once pulled over by a member of the DPS, the Texas Rangers. On a long stretch of highway between Fort Worth and Austin he picked me. He said I wasn’t “drivin’ friendly.” When he saw my New York drivers license he hitched his gun belt and laughed. “Boy,” he said. “You got yourself an attitude.”
The folks in Harry Hunsicker’s THE NEXT TIME YOU DIE have an attitude that makes social interaction a spectator sport with enough guns, knives, fists, and boots to satisfy a need for mayhem the size of the Texas Panhandle. Lee H. Oswald is a PI in Dallas and no, he’s not the guy who shot Kennedy, he’s only a namesake. Hank and his partner, Nolan, have enough firepower to invade Honduras, but they don’t have to look for trouble. A Baptist preacher with a drinking problem asks Hank to locate a missing file. What follows from that simple premise resembles a range war from Big D to East Texas and back again. While the bullets fly Hank manages to get involved with bad girl Tess, a boyhood friend, and a power struggle to control crime in wide open Dallas.
I always avoid spoilers and in this case it wouldn’t matter because I never quite caught the wave or understood what was happening. People in this novel shoot first and ask questions only in response to other questions most of which result in a hail of gunfire. Hank endures much for old times sake and I admire that in a PI. He carries a Browning Hi Power and from what I could tell, he doesn’t drive friendly. In fact for a good portion of the story he’s behind the wheel of a Bentley an automobile bound to raise eyebrows in the small towns where Hank finds the source of all the trouble.
Harry Hunsicker has an eye for detail and knows his turf. He pays homage to the old school of tough guy heroes updated with a female partner who’s as tough as Hank and a better shot. You get the feeling that if Miss Marple happened by, she’d have a six pack of Pearl and a double ought under her pink cardigan and live grenades in the bed of her pickup. Welcome to Dallas, ma’am, and pass the ammunition.