Shotgun — William Wingate

I wrote Shotgun specifically for the movies.
I kept the action tight, over days rather than weeks. I also kept the locale in one area -- more or less -- and the characters to a minimum.
This formula worked because Shotgun was made into a movie.
In fact, after I had sold the movie rights I was approached by a second movie maker.

The movie was called Malone, with Burt Reynolds, Cliff Robertson and Lauren Hutton. You can still pick up Malone on late night movie shows or movie websites.
It wasn't a bad movie. Only I wish they had stuck more closely to the last third of the book -- and my ending, not their own. Mine was much, much better. At least, I think so. So if you ever saw the movie and didn't like the ending as much as the beginning and the middle, here's a better one from Kindle ebooks.
I used the upfront money for Malone in a crazy investment nobody with half a brain would have looked at twice. And when the investment, by some miracle or two, actually worked out I got paid only half the money the folks I invested with were supposed to pay me. But that is another story…
Anyway, half or not, it helped me quit my day job and not really have to do much more after that -- like having to wake up every day and do something real for a living. So I am grateful to Malone and Burt Reynolds. Only I wish the investment people had stuck more closely to the deal first agreed -- our agreement, not their own.

Of the novel, The New York Times Book Review wrote: “Mr. Wingate tells his story very well, and there is something in all of us that responds joyously to the sight of an avenging angel destroying bullies and the forces of evil.”
The Daily Telegraph, London, wrote: “There is power -- a raw strength -- in Wingate's writing that is unquestionably original … a disturbing and memorable book.”
And the well respected Yorkshire Evening Post wrote: “Explosive … ultra-tough.”

So there you have it: A well written, powerful, ultra-tough book that you will enjoy if you like to see Mafia bullies being destroyed. An old theme, the Mafia thing, but nonetheless made memorable through some ‘unquestionably original' writing.

In the UK, Shotgun appeared under the title Hardacre's Way (in hardback, by Macmillan, London), and as Hardacre (in soft back by Pan). It was published as Shotgun by St Martin's Press and Dell in the US.

The book has Cold War elements in that John Hardacre is a pretty ruthless renegade defector from the Bulgarian Secret Service who gives his CIA handlers lots of trouble in their handling of him. Under the names Yazov and Crystal, Hardacre featured too in my earlier novels Fireplay and Bloodbath, also available as Kindle ebooks.

Crystal-Hardacre-Yazov is what puts the words ‘ulra-tough', ‘explosive', ‘powerful', and ‘raw strength' into the novels, and reviews thereof. For Crystal-Hardacre-Yazov is like no other: He is Bulgarian to start with…
I am not Bulgarian.
Nor do I have anything particular for or against Bulgarians.
Maybe, given that Shotgun was written in the middle of the Cold War, I was being ‘original'.
The plot? You guessed it… A Bulgarian, renegade defector cleans up a Mafia run town in the mountains near Knoxville, Tennessee, in a big way. Just because…
I guess not everybody would have thought of that.