THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 19, 1995 TAG: 9503140265
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: GREGORY N. KROLCZYK
LENGTH: Short : 41 lines
DIRTY WHITE BOYS
STEPHEN HUNTER
Random House. 436 pp. $21.
IT ALL STARTED in the showers. Junior Jefferson decided he was going to make Lamar Pye his, and get himself a big reputation in the process. But all Junior ending up getting was dead.
Unfortunately, killing Junior was like signing a death warrant: The blacks weren't about to let a dirty white boy like Lamar get away with killing one of their own. That meant Lamar had to get out of McAlester State Penitentiary, and he had to do it now. By evening, Lamar, his simple-minded giant of a cousin and their cravenly cellmate were riding into the depths of the Oklahoma night.
For senior state trooper Bud Pewtie and partner Ted Pepper, hunting down these cons was business as usual. But that was before they found out firsthand exactly how cold-blooded the Pye boys could be.
Now, it's personal.
If approached as nothing more than a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am-type book, Dirty White Boys, Stephen Hunter's sixth novel, is perfect, filled with action, violence and a pinch of sex. But apply a bit of scrutiny, and the book falls apart faster than you can say ``Smith and Wesson.''
Basically, the problem here is testosterone; Dirty White Boys nearly drips with it. Hunter, movie critic for The Baltimore Sun, has worked almost every male fantasy imaginable into his story. Unfortunately, he hasn't done it well.
The plot is awfully predictable - and occasionally embarrassing. Add to this the fact that the most likable character in the bunch is a cold-hearted killer, and you have a tale that's best left alone. by CNB