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People kill each other over the dumbest things. You might think that the reason for the carnage in SUICIDE SQUEEZE, Victor Gischler's third and latest novel, is absurd. The motivation behind everything (well, almost everything) that takes place here is the acquisition of...a baseball card. It's not just any baseball card, though. It's a 1954 Joe DiMaggio card, autographed by Mr. Coffee himself, and the actress he was married to at the time, a starlet named Marilyn Monroe. Oh, by the way, there is a third signature on the card, that belonging to movie director Billy Wilder. There may have been a lot of Joltin' Joe DiMaggio cards printed, but one having those three signatures on it is truly one of a kind. Would people kill for a card like that? Yes. They would.
As you might expect, such a card is well beyond the reach of your average trading card fan, the kid with the dirty t-shirt and the dirty five-dollar bill who refuses to change either one. In SUICIDE SQUEEZE, however, the card has attracted the attention of Ahira Kurisaka, an unscrupulous and extremely wealthy businessman who wants the card and is willing to pay any price, and do anything, to get it. The owner of the prized possession is Teddy Folger, who used the valuable card as part of an insurance scam to fly the coup on his obligations to his ex-wife and everyone else within grabbing distance of him. Folger claimed that the card was destroyed in a fire, collected on his insurance policy, and got out of Dodge, sailing on a leased yacht on which he has no intentions of making payments. He of course still has the card and is looking to clandestinely sell it to the highest bidder.
Enter Conner Samson, a down-on-his-luck repo man who is retained by the rightful owner of the boat for the express purpose of getting it back. Samson gets to Folger about the same time that Kurisaka's representatives do, only he's a step or three behind. Samson gets the yacht, and Kurisaka's hirelings think he also has the card. Throw one of Samson's past due gambling debts, and a polite but firm collector, into the mix, and you have a "suicide squeeze."
Although Gischler is only three books into a brilliant career, he has thoroughly mastered the ability, as demonstrated in this novel, to present a complex plot without losing the reader in the narrative. Gischler's characters are quirky but believable, and his sense of humor keeps the plot afloat rather than miring it in absurdity. One quick example is a scene wherein Samson attends a science fiction convention. Gischler nails everything --- the generic hotel, the merch dealers, and most importantly, the crowd --- with just a few sentences that will leave you howling and at the same time humbled.
Incidentally, Gischler knows his stuff as well (I have my first Byrne X-Men issue under lock and key, too!) and as a result you can't read SUICIDE SQUEEZE without picking up a nugget or two of arcane knowledge along the way. Best of all, it is a fast, fun read. You can't ask for much more than that.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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