Panic! by Bill Pronzini

Retrieved from: ILL
0394474910, 1972
Suggested by: the authors list
My Ratings: 7 Merit, 7 Interest, 8 Fun

I read this on my lunch hours over the past week or so. It's a speedy read, and rather dated (some very unintentionally humorous parts, read from a 30-years'-later perspective), but good suspense.

We find the Hero having just been kicked off of a bus traveling through the desert; his ticket is no good. The guy that owns the rest stop agrees to feed and house him if he does some work around the place for a few days.

We find the Heroine running away from her life in New York after a failed love affair...and something else beyond that.

We find the Chief of Police of the nearest town to the rest stop in the desert. He is in a bar. This is where he spends his afternoons, because there is really no crime and he's mostly a figurehead anyway.

We find the Bad Guys on their way to do their job. They are clearly hit men, an old pro and his trainee.

All these people's lives intersect when the Bad Guys shoot the owner of the rest stop before realizing he has 'company.' They then take off after the Hero who has run out the back door into the desert. He stumbles across the Heroine and they try to beat the Bad Guys back to town. No such luck. Then the Chief comes across clues, the Hero "cures" the Heroine of being a lesbian, and the Bad Guys get killed.

Good plot. I can see Pronzini taking a big step in this one, even if there are some really embarrassing bits. Still, very tight and suspenseful.