G. M. Ford, Blown Away [Library of Babel]

Blown Away is the sixth Frank Corso novel from G. M. Ford, featuring the exploits of an intrepid investigative reporter and true-crime author with a knack for getting involved in spectuacularly bloody crimes. As the sixth book in a mystery series, you pretty much know what you're going to get.

At least, it looks that way for most of the book. Really, the only reason this book rates prompt book-logging is the ending, which is all I really want to talk about here. There's just no way to do this without massive spoilers, which I will put below the fold-- if you've read the other Corso books, but not this one, do not click on the "Read on" link unless you want to book ruined.

Let me repeat that: DO NOT CLICK "READ ON" UNLESS YOU'VE ALREADY READ THE BOOK.

First, a little plot summary: when the book opens, Corso is in the ass end of nowhere in Pennsylvania, looking into a bizarre bank robbery gone wrong, in which a no-account local man walked into a bank with a bomb locked around his neck, and a note asking the teller to give him all the money in the cash drawer or unidentified kidnappers would blow him up. The cops tackled him in the parking lot, and while they were waiting for the bomb squad, the bomb went off, blowing his head clean off.

Corso has no interest in the story at first, but then a couple of masked men try to kidnap him, and then somebody tries to kill him, and his interest is piqued. Accompanied by an Intrepid Research Assisstant sent by his publisher, he starts to poke around, when the FBI and ATF swoop in and whisk them off to LA, where there have been a series of robberies with the same creepy M.O.

Commence SPOILERS

A bit of very standard poking around ensues, with bodies piling up, and Corso annoying lots of people but always turning out to be right. The bombings turn out to be connected to a group of disgruntled veterans who all attended the same support group, and were masterminded by a maimed veteran used as a consultant by the FBI. Corso confronts him, he blows himself up, everything is as you would expect for the genre.

Of course, there's still a nagging loose end regarding the original victim in Pennsylvania, so they go back to investigate. Corso uncovers a connection between the creepy manager of the hotel in town and the veterans out West, but the manager has disappeared. He calls the FBI, but the agent in charge is out, so he calls his publisher to check in.

The publisher says "Where have you been, I've been trying to reach you-- the Interpid Research Assistant we were going to send is dead, shot in her apartment a week ago." At which point the fake Intrepid Research Assistant pulls a gun, and forces Corso to drive to a remote spot where the missing hotel manager is waiting. They beat him up, and drug him, and he passes out into a hallucinatory flashback interlude.

At this point, there are literally two pages left in the book, so I expect the next scene to be Corso waking up in a deserted cabin, perhaps being rescued by the FBI agent, and finding the conspirators long gone.

Instead, the last two pages describe Corson walking into a bank with a note and a bomb locked around his neck The last line is "'Please,' he said."

WTF?!?!? Are you even allowed to do that to your readers? I mean, seriously, who writes a detective novel in which the bad guys not only get away, they get to blow up the detective? Talk about vioating genre expectations...

My best guess is that Ford has gotten tired of the Corso character-- his previous series, about Leo Waterman, ran six books before he shut it down, and this is the sixth Corso novel. But whatever the reason, damn, that was unexpected...