Evan Hunter Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Frank N. Jones

Critical Essay by Frank N. Jones

[A Horse's Head] is a lively, fast-moving tale of big-time robbery in New York City recounted by the innocent victim of an abortive plot to spirit the loot out of the country with a genuine corpse. Instead of becoming the corpse, the narrator has two days of whirlwind chases and hair-breadth escapes from Newark to the lower East Side to the Bronx to the Aqueduct race track…. In the end, when the harassed narrator, who is in fact a book salesman on a year's gambling junket, gets trapped by the crooks, he tosses in his chips and goes back to the loving wife he deserted to make a killing with the big-time gamblers. He is a sort of poor man's James Bond character, and Mr. Hunter combines features of O. Henry, James Thurber, James Joyce, and "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." This book has unusual literary quality for a light-hearted thriller.

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