Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Fight Card: Golden Gate Gloves - Jack Tunney (Robert Evans)



San Francisco 1951

Conall O’Quinn grew up at St. Vincent’s Asylum For Boys, a Chicago orphanage where he learned the sweet science of boxing from Father Tim, the battling priest. After a stint in the Army, Conall finds work on the docks of San Francisco – a place where his fists make him the dock champion. Soon, however, he gets on the bad side of a union boss and is set up for a dock side brawl designed to knockout his fighting career. When Conall comes out on top, things go from bad to worse when he is framed for the docks going up in flames.

Along with Benson, his best friend and trainer, Conall heads for the hills in search of a lost treasure in the vicinity of a mine controlled by the union boss. However, where Conall goes trouble follows and he is quickly embroiled in a heated grudge match between fist-happy miners and lumberjacks.

Championing the miners in an all out slugfest, Conall is about to find out there is more to fighting than just swinging fists … giant, hammer-fisted lumberjacks, the mine owner’s beautiful daughter, union flunkies, and mob thugs all want a piece of him … and when the opening bell rings, the entire world appears to be against him …



As we've grown to expect from the Fight Card series, GOLDEN GATE GLOVES is a very entertaining yarn. With most of the books in the series being set in big cities, as this one partially is, I especially enjoyed the change of pace of having some of the story take place in California's mining country. Evans's prose has a nice headlong pace and the fight scenes are well-done. This is good solid storytelling, and I look forward to getting another prime example of that every month in the Fight Card series.

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