Galveston By Nick Pizzolatto - Book Review

        Roy Cady is a hitman who has cancer. He works for Stan, a mobster in New Orleans. When Stan wants to kill Cady, he sets him up in an ambush only to have Cady kill his men instead and take off with a prostitute named Rocky. 

        While the story is off to a great beginning, much of the story after that is about Cady helping Rocky and her sister find a new life with the tension building as to whether Cady will stay or leave. 

        As the story unfolds, we learn more disturbing secrets about the main characters. It’s also hard for me to believe that Rocky is expected to start a new life from a hotel where her only job would be as a waitress in a local restaurant. 

        The story has a very hard edge to it along with the characters. It’s not that I don’t like hard edge stories. I do, especially after reading Sailor by Tom Epperson. 

         In both stories, the characters were great to follow but in Galveston, the story went into a much different direction which was very disturbing, making the whole experience in reading this a huge disappointment. 

          Nick Pizzolatto is also involved in the TV series on HBO.  Not sure that I want to see the series after reading this book .  

          Many people who gave this book five stars said that it was a Noir thriller.  I don’t see the comparison to many pulp stories and it’s really hard for me to give this story more than two stars. 

Ron Hummer