Hard as Nails

Hard as Nails is the third Joe Kurtz novel offered by Dan Simmons and, one thing for sure, this one is perfectly titled. Joe Kurtz is definitely “hard as nails.” In fact, I cannot imagine anyone being tougher than this guy. He’s shot in the head and left for dead very near the beginning of the novel, receives only minimal medical attention, and searches for his shooter while battling the mother of all headaches (a headache he loses only after being tasered to within an inch of his life) for almost all of the rest of the book.

Simmons packs so much action and so many characters into this 288-page crime thriller that the reader might be in danger of acquiring a headache of his own. Before Kurtz can even begin to search for the man show more who almost killed him and his parole officer, he is forced to deal with two New York mafia dons (no stereotypes here: one is gay and one is female) that want him to find out who is killing so many of their heroin dealers and their customers. The dons are willing to pay him if he is successful - but one of them plans to kill him if he fails.

Then there’s the Artful Dodger, a terribly scarred serial killer who has worn a Brooklyn Dodger baseball cap, 24-7, most of his life. This guy is good - and he’s after Joe Kurtz, too. Throw into the mix a Yemeni assassin that mistakenly believes he is working for the CIA, an evil Viet Nam era colonel that gets around pretty well despite being confined to a wheel chair, his Vietnamese partner, Kurtz’s policewoman girlfriend-of-sorts, another mysteriously powerful man manipulating much of the action, and numerous colorful characters from the Buffalo underbelly and you have the makings for non-stop, but confusing, action and plots.

It is all a bit much and what could have been a riveting crime thriller reads instead like a surrealistic take on the genre itself. Simmons has the characters and plots for two good thrillers here but they suffer from being crammed into one relatively short book in which there is little room to fully develop either the characters or the plots. This is one of those cases of “too much of a good thing” and that’s without even mentioning the bizarre climactic battle that ends the book. Perhaps Simmons purposely went over the top with this one but, if so, that’s a shame.

Rated at: 2.5 show less

This high action mystery/thriller kept barreling along - just like an action movie....never a dull moment. It kind of had a noir feeling to it - partly in the way the city (Buffalo NY) and area is described and partly in the style of Joe - rough, hard, unemotional, powers through any kind of pain, etc. I was led a merry chase and didn't figure out who the bad guy manipulating everything was till the very end....which is how I like it. A good summer mystery read.

I liked this book best out of the three Joe Kurtz novels. I think it has to do with a glimpse into his childhood and some of Joe's hot-buttons. He is just a little more human this time, a little more anguished. More people are not tip-toeing around him being a girl's father.

The only part I really didn't like was the helicopter assault near the end. Lots of reasons. Way too over-the-top. Everyone agreed to THAT plan? Since when do mafia dons participate in open assaults? I've got people for that (really talented people)! An auto-rotation landing? Not the sort of landing that delivers all your people intact enough to jump out and do the assault. Why couldn't Little Doc get a stealth helicopter, given how much ridiculous stuff he did get show more with a few hours' notice? The Colonel's highly efficient, well-armed, and scattered men are overwhelmed too easily.

The armored SUV was quite a red herring. I wonder if Simmons had a draft where Joe made use of it?

I'd guessed the Dodger's identity fairly early. Maybe Simmons dropped too many hints.

I do have a hard time believing existing mafia heroin distribution groups would not have better intelligence on any rival in their territory. Working your way up the chain of employees, regardless of high-level protection, doesn't seem that difficult. But that was only a minor wrinkle in my suspension of disbelief.

Once again Simmons had a weapon, um ... malfunction, lol. Big Bore's massive Ruger revolver probably didn't have a "6.5 pound trigger pull." It was more likely closer to 12 pounds. And no way would any of his girlfriends had any trouble pulling the trigger in either event. I know, I know, pedantic of me.

Fun story, worth a half-star better rating than the others, and I was wondering for quite a while when the Dane might make an appearance again. show less

Takes a licking and keeps on ticking... that's Joe Kurtz. You have to suspend your belief systems for sure when you're reading about Joe Kurtz. Nobody in real life could live like this and still be alive.
Entertaining thriller about an ex-P.I. in Buffalo NY who has more lives than a cat.

I enjoyed this the most of the Joe Kurtz novels, perhaps for the same reason some reviewers didn't. It gets a little to implausible almost like Dan Simmons is mixing a little scifi with this "hardboiled" fiction.

Good job by Dan Simmons creating the character Joe Kurtz.

Giallo hardboiled molto ben scritto, Simmons scrive molto bene, la storia è molto ben strutturata e appassionante, i personaggi ben caratterizzati, dettagliatissime descrizioni sia ambientali, che particolari, delle situazioni, delle armi, delle azioni, ecc... Una lettura gradevole.