‘The Shotgun Rule’ a tough, violent read

  OK, guys, listen up. If you enjoyed Stephen King’s "The Body" (aka "Stand By Me"), or Robert R. McCammon’s "A Boy’s Life," or even "A Fine Dark Line" by Joe Lansdale, then fasten your seat belts and put on your protective headgear because Charlie Houston’s "The Shotgun Rule" is like being blown out of a cannon at 80 miles an hour. Think of the other stories, and then add some crystal meth to the mix to really get you wired and zigzagging around, and you can get a general idea of the trip ahead.
  Meet Andy and George Whelan. Andy’s the younger of the two and a real nerdy genius, who has already skipped two school grades because of his high IQ and now finds that he’s caught up with his brother. George, like the majority of older brothers, resents having Andy around all the time. It’s like he’s an unwanted appendage. Still, George being a somewhat good guy, puts up with it most of the time, especially when he’s with his other two friends, Hector (the only Chicano in the small group) and Paul, who has a quick temper and constantly needs to prove himself, even if it gets him killed in the process.
  The four kids aren’t really bad. They’re just prone to getting into trouble by stealing and lying and running off at the mouth. Such is the case when one of the Arroyo brothers steals Andy’s bicycle and the four kids decide to confront the older and definitely much meaner boys to get the bike back. A vicious fight takes place and the police are called out to the Arroyo’s home. When one of the Arroyo brothers makes the mistake of stepping outside the house with a gun in his hand, the cops shoot him and arrest all three of the trouble-making brothers. This gives Paul, George, Andy and Hector (they’d taken off before the police arrived) the chance to get the stolen bike back and to steal anything of value in the house.
  Paul, unfortunately, finds a bag of meth and keeps the secret to himself. This leads to a hair-raising incident when the man in charge (the Geezer) of the Arroyo’s meth lab decides that he wants the bag of meth back. That’s when all hell breaks loose and everyone involved suddenly finds themselves on the receiving end of being beaten up or shot or tortured or even killed. The four kids are going to find out just how quickly life can shift from good times to bad times because of one stupid mistake made in the heat of the moment.
  "The Shotgun Rule" by Charlie Huston definitely lifts this author up to a much higher caliber of writing than his previous books (the “Hank Thompson” and the “Joe Pitt” series), which isn’t to say that his other novels aren’t good. They are! "The Shotgun Rule," however, demonstrates the author’s unique ability to write a story that’s utterly addictive and in your face with a sharp, detailed look at the life of four kids in the early '80s and how their lives are turned upside down by a quick decision that has horrible repercussions.
  Huston also knows how to choose his words with a careful leanness that cuts away the fat and leaves nothing but the bare essentials to tantalize the reader from each page to the next. He gives the reader a vivid description of all the players so that one can actually visualize exactly what the characters look like. Whenever the Geezer was playing his scenes in the book, I kept seeing the late, great character actor Robert Prosky in the role. John Travolta would be perfect as Bob Whelan, the father of George and Andy, whose secret past of drugs and violence comes back to haunt his children and to complete the circle that was started so many years before. Lastly, Huston captures the atmosphere of the '80s in such a way that the reader is transported back in time to a period when society began to realize that there are no right answers and that one has to follow his own set of rules and code of honor in order to survive the evil encountered every day.
  Clearly, "The Shotgun Rule" is a tough, violent read that will have you craving more of Huston’s writing and will hopefully enlarge the author’s fan base to something more suitable for this very talented writer. 
 For more on Charlie Huston, see the review of his latest hardback, "The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death."