Looking for a bit of quality entertainment? Now I used entertainment purposefully, not literature, because The Ice Harvest by Scott Phillips, published in 2000, should in no way be confused with literature. A good comparison from the movies is Pulp Fiction versus Get Shorty; both are entertaining but the former reaches levels of sophistication to which the latter doesn’t even aspire.
Charlie Arglist is a small time mob lawyer in Wichita, Kansas, and we follow him through about 12 hours beginning after dinner time on Christmas Eve 1979. He’s up to something, doesn’t want his associates to know what, and expects to be gone before people start unwrapping their presents. A barely in control alcoholic, Charlie totters from one place to get a drink to another waiting for a get together. He visits bars and strip joints, takes his ex-sister-in-law’s new Mercedes after her husband pukes in the company-issued Lincoln, considers sexual opportunities. The real action starts when he gets to the meet and instead of his buddy being home, there’s blood.
Phillips has a light style, somewhat in the Elmore Leonard/Carl Hiaasen vein, though never winding the tension as those two generally do. A funny book though not much in the way of laugh out loud jokes. The territory combined with the short time span gives Phillips a fresh taste.
recommended
This book will become a movie next year that might be an even better medium for the tale. John Cusak will star as Charlie, Billy Bob Thornton will play the buddy, Connie Nielsen the woman who Cusak almost hooks up with; directing will be Harold Ramis (Groundhog Day, Analyze This/That) from a script by Robert Benton and Richard Russo.
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