Review of The Nihilistics
Review of The Nihilistics by Wallace Sanders
The Nihilistics is a banger of a crime novel about spree killers and their hunter, Sheriff Strake. But it may also be to nihilism what Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday was to anarchism. A higher compliment: If Puckett writes 3 more interrelated Sheriff Strake novels—and I sure hope he does—that Strake Quartet might be to 1970s street crime what Oakley’s Warlock was to 1880s rustling: something that takes a sub-genre and its delivery up a notch, which hides something of value in a mostly empty gulch. Two things about the writer’s style. First, Puckett ends paragraphs, chapters, and especially the whole bloody thing really well. I want to demonstrate this, but I can’t think of a way to do it that’s sufficiently spoiler free. Apologies. Secondly, Puckett isn’t aping any of the greats or even the very goods: not Leonard or Westlake, not Duane Swierczynski, not Matt Goldman, not Joe R. Lansdale. He’s in a class of his own. Does the novel entertain? Thrillification—that’s what this book serves up. With a side order, just possibly, of making you think.
