This novel is a thumping good read.You are probably familiar with the film version of this novel, first published in 1978. This past weekend, I ran across this book at a library book sale in Newport News, and just read it for the first time. It’s an exciting edge of the seat experience that moves along at just the right speed; a novel that stayed on my mind when I wasn’t reading it, even though I had seen the film version. It involves a likable cast of police detectives in a sort of combination 87th Precinct/Lustbader/Ludlum-esque thriller, with a healthy dose of the film noir “Laura” stirred in.The characters are well drawn, believable, and entertaining. Don’t you sometimes love a novel wherein the good guys are really good, and the bad guys are really bad? This novel keeps the reader in ever increasing suspense, building to a colorful, frenetic, fiery climax that would have been much too expensive for Hollywood to film; so the ending of the novel is much more spectacular than that of the film. This novel includes explicit sex and violence, both handled very well by a first time author. One of the best things about the book for me was the idea of every day, real people street detectives happening upon a conspiracy of movers and shakers (with its origin in history and stolen wealth, and its eye on the future of the USA) and deciding to take it down. As Balzac said, “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime”.Like a number of 1970’s thrillers (Marathon Man, The Boys from Brazil, etc.) this story has its origins in World War II. It’s not surprising that authors who lived through that time would use the major event of their lives as a springboard for their tales of intrigue and evil. Also, this novel is great fun to read, another quality shared by many of the best suspense novels of the 1970’s, and something I find lacking in a lot of today’s “thrillers”.This novel reads as if it were written specifically for Burt Reynolds. The book’s cinematic qualities, along with the persona of Sharky, play to Reynolds’s strengths as an actor who, when this book was published, was at the height of his powers and popularity. It’s difficult to read this novel, even now with a fresh eye, and not picture Burt Reynolds as Sharky.Speaking of the film, I’ve read that John Boorman was originally set to direct, but left the project. Reynolds took over as director, and working with several of his friends, created what is reportedly his most financially successful motion picture as a director.The author, William Diehl, also appears briefly in the film, and receives screen credit as the character “Percy”. He is seen in conversation with Charles Durning, and is called out by a hooker who is under arrest in the division squad room, provoking an intense reaction. Sharky’s Machine was Diehl’s first novel, and he went on to write nine more before his death in 2006, including Primal Fear which was made into a film starring Richard Gere and Edward Norton. Diehl was already over 50 years old when he began his career as an author, and made an impressive debut with Sharky’s Machine.
This is one of those books you want to read when you play hooky from work on a rainy day. Entertaining, but not too demanding. There is not really a mystery, but there is some suspense generated by how the whole thing comes together, and at least one good plot surprise. There were a couple of things that bugged me, though. Spoilers ahead:1. I don't like "love at first sight" as a plot device. It rings hollow. 2. The whole thing loses credibility when The Nosh goes into that building alone. He ha
