* FULL THROTTLE: THE COLLECTED CAMARO, VOL.1 is temporarily unavailable*
Lalo thought it would be easiest for him to simply enter and gun her down. All of that had gone to hell and Lalo was gone.
Lalo was gone.
I got this issue with female characters in darker of more violent fiction. It's not that I think women are not entitled to star in this kind of stories, I just think most of them are sloppily written by authors obsessed by the idea of making them do the same thing as their male counterpart, except they're wearing a leather jacket and stiletto heels. See what I mean? It's why I'm reading so many of them, because I'm always looking for "that one" that's going to redefine the use of female protagonists to me. It's why I've read Sam Hawken's FULL THROTTLE: THE COLLECTED CAMARO, VOL.1, There's a strong buzz about Camaro Espinoza being the next big thing in crime fiction, so I wanted to get to the bottom of it, and while there were positives and negatives about Camaro herself, but there are way more reasons to like FULL THROTTLE than just its main character.
There are four novellas in FULL THROTTLE: CAMARO RUN, CROSSFIRE, THE DRUM and SISTERS IN ARMS. They're self-contained stories that each can be enjoyed independently, but they're best read in chronological order since Camaro Espinoza reveals more and more of who she is, so your appreciation of the early ones can be altered by a detail or a revelation further down the line. It's a quirky detail that makes reading more rewarding. CAMARO RUN and CROSSFIRE are more or less linked together, as Camaro wraps a lot of loose ends in the second story and they're FULL THROTTLE's calling card because of it, but the story I appreciated the most was SISTERS IN ARMS, which had a DEATH WISH vibe to it. No good guys. No real bad guys. Just an impossible situation and all kinds of demons to deal with. It requires more of an active reading than the others, but I like not having my work cut out for me.
Camaro Espinoza is an interesting middle ground between Lee Child's Jack Reacher and David Morrell's John Rambo: an army veteran drifting through the United States and looking for a fresh start that never seems to happen. The curve ball here is that Camaro is a woman. Another interesting wrinkle is that she's an outlaw. I liked CAMARO RUN and CROSSFIRE a lot, because trouble finds her in these novellas. In THE DRUM, her motherly side takes over and while the story is wrapped tight, she takes all sorts of risks could cost her everything and that don't necessarily fit with her character in the earlier stories. Overall, she's an interesting female character, though. She never tries to match brute force with her enemies (except that one time in THE DRUM), she's intuitive and cerebral, she might not be the most womanly character (she's always too busy to let her feminine side come out), but she's far from being a dude in heels.
"You crazy bitch, let me go!"
Camaro put more pressure on Maddox's elbow and his shout became a whine. ''I keep pulling on your wrist like this, I'm gonna break your arm.'' Camaro said. ''Your brother has a broken arm. You can wear casts together."
The real showstopper in FULL THROTTLE isn't the main character though, it's Sam Hawken's writing. He has this understated, intuitive, almost Hemingwayesque style that forces you to always read between the lines. Although there is a little bit of exposition, much of who Camaro is transpires through her words and her actions. There are never any weepy moments where you're supposed to feel sorry for her. SISTERS IN ARMS sheds some light on her past, but it does so in such an ambiguous, problematic way that it's up to the reader to construct meaning from it. It's why I like to compare Camaro Espinoza to John Rambo: she always wants to do what's right, but the choices she has are not always that clear. Sometimes it's not about right and wrong, it's about survival. FULL THROTTLE paints Camaro Espinoza as a very powerful, black-or-white character caught in all sorts of morally grey areas.
FULL THROTTLE is currently unavailable to purchase online, but there's a good explanation why: the first Camaro Espinoza novel THE NIGHT CHARTER is coming this December from freakin' Mulholland Books. So that's exciting news. I've enjoyed the introduction to Camaro in FULL THROTTLE, but I'm actually excited to read a full novel. At this point, I'd be excited to read anything by Sam Hawken, really. He convinced me. His quirky, subtle and understated brand of crime literature is something different from what you can find out there and whatever he writes, I'm one hundred percent onboard with, from now on. The jury is still out on whether or not Camaro Espinoza will become one of my examples of viable female characters, but I'm intrigued. I will review THE NIGHT CHARTER when it comes out and until then, you can order you own copy here.