Bloody River Blues, by Jeffery Deaver

John Pellam, a Hollywood location scout, happens to cross the path of a hitman just before the hit, and no-one will believe him when he says that he didn't actually see anyone's face and so can't identify who was involved. This results in his being harrassed by the cops, who have no other witnesses, and alternately offered bribes and threats by the criminals, who don't want him talking to the cops.

This reminded me of Elmore Leonard a bit, with a main character who's just trying to get on with his life and finds himself reluctantly drawn into having to deal with people who are making trouble for him. The humour in this case comes from the fact that Pellam really didn't see anything, but no-one will believe him.

For some reason, this book took me a long it to read; I was only getting through a couple of pages per night. It would have benefitted from some serious dedicated chunks of reading time to get into the rhythm of it.

I was quite impressed with this book, and so I'll be reading more by Deaver - there are a couple more "location scout" books as well as a whole load of other thrillers.

Completed : 17-Sep-2003

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