Hidden in the Piney Woods of East Texas is the small town of Cottonmouth. Little more than a hotel, a garage, a diner and a few residential streets, Cottonmouth almost seems to be avoiding drawing attention to itself. Cottonmouth Motor Court, the hotel, has a run-down, unwelcoming feel and you could be forgiven for thinking it must be desperate for business. Keep driving another hour and you’ll find something much nicer. The town seems to be the perfect place to disappear.
And disappear is something Britte Thorpe would very much like to do. If she can’t manage that – the jagged scar across her face almost accentuates her beauty, as well as making it very hard for her to blend in with a crowd – then she can at least get a few hours of precious rest, as she tries to keep ahead of the two goons chasing her. Britte has stolen two very valuable items from a bad man – a young girl called Siobhan, whom she is passing off as her daughter, and a bag of diamonds.
To disappear is something Devlin Mahoney has already done. The clerk at the hotel used to be a CIA spy but a bad case of post traumatic stress disorder has put him on the sidelines. Nevertheless, as a known and feared American asset, Devlin’s job is to stay disappeared. That’s why he, and a few other retired agents, are living out their days in this sleepy little town.
Mahoney, a good guy at heart and unable to ignore two women in peril, rescues Britte and Siobhan when her pursuers catch up with her. He knows if he informs the bureaucrat in charge of the community, a weaselly man named Lofland, he will be ordered to back off.
Much of the story’s tension derives from Mahoney’s internal conflict over helping the women and the risk of discovery. After all, it’s hard to stay off the map when automatic weapons are being discharged. It’s not just his own identity he risks blowing, but that of the entire group of former agents, and they don’t all share his altruistic streak.
If think this sounds like a Texan Slow Horses, well it’s undeniable that there are similarities in the set up. But the execution is different. The spooks in Cottonmouth are not embarrassments and screw ups, they are the best of the best… just a little past their sell by dates.
As the frustrated criminal boss sends in bigger and better teams to clean up his little problem, I never really worried Mahoney and his crew would be outmatched. The tone of the novel is, for the most part, light hearted and much of the humour comes at the expense of the criminals rather than the spies. Again, this is different from Mick Herron’s gang of bumbling agents.
Nor in any sense is there a political subtext to the story. Lofland and his attempts to thwart Mahoney in doing the right thing kind of represents a vague suspicion that the government might not be especially concerned with the welfare of the ordinary folk, but there is no topical satire here.
There is amusing banter, a little romance and plenty of action set pieces which the author handles deftly. Some effort is given to drawing Mahoney, and he makes for a likeable, diverting protagonist, but his gang are less fleshed out. Perhaps that will come as the series develops and we get to know them a little better.
Perhaps Texas’ most famous crime fiction writer, Joe Lansdale knows a little about writing humour in fiction. Take a look at the article he wrote for us on this subject here.
Blackstone Publishing
Print/Kindle
£7.27
CFL Rating: 3 Stars
