Sharky's Machine
The book Sharky's Machine was made into the movie Sharky's Machine.
Book details for Sharky's MachineSharky's Machine was written by William Diehl. The book was published in 1978 by Ballantine Books. More information on the book is available on Amazon.com. William Diehl also wrote Primal Fear (1993). |
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Italy, 1944: A squad of American soldiers on a dangerous secret mission is ambushed and slaughtered . . . and a fortune in gold vanishes.Hong Kong, 1959: An aging American colonel, haunted by his wartime past, is brutally murdered in a luxurious brothel.A... Read More
Italy, 1944: A squad of American soldiers on a dangerous secret mission is ambushed and slaughtered . . . and a fortune in gold vanishes.
Hong Kong, 1959: An aging American colonel, haunted by his wartime past, is brutally murdered in a luxurious brothel.
Atlanta, 1975: The last survivor of the fatal World War II ambush in Italy is executed at point blank range in a parking lot.
Blowing away a crazed, gun-wielding drug dealer on a crowded city bus gets police detective Sharky bounced from the narc squad into the dreaded dregs of the department--vice. That's where he stumbles on a high-priced call girl and her pimp who are fleecing rich johns in an even higher-priced blackmail scam. Together with his "machine" of hard-bitten vice squad veterans, Sharky closes in for a big sting. He doesn't count on falling for Domino, his alluring target. Or falling into the middle of the murderous design she's a part of--involving a hot presidential candidate, the shadowy multimillionaire who's backing him, and the ice-cold assassin they're using to wipe out the past . . . before it blows their future to hell.
"Every chapter crackles with sex, violence, and corruption."
--The Washington Post
"Fast-paced, attention-holding, hard-hitting."
--Chicago Tribune
"A slam-bang ending that should shock the most jaded thriller reader."
--The Associated Press
Hong Kong, 1959: An aging American colonel, haunted by his wartime past, is brutally murdered in a luxurious brothel.
Atlanta, 1975: The last survivor of the fatal World War II ambush in Italy is executed at point blank range in a parking lot.
Blowing away a crazed, gun-wielding drug dealer on a crowded city bus gets police detective Sharky bounced from the narc squad into the dreaded dregs of the department--vice. That's where he stumbles on a high-priced call girl and her pimp who are fleecing rich johns in an even higher-priced blackmail scam. Together with his "machine" of hard-bitten vice squad veterans, Sharky closes in for a big sting. He doesn't count on falling for Domino, his alluring target. Or falling into the middle of the murderous design she's a part of--involving a hot presidential candidate, the shadowy multimillionaire who's backing him, and the ice-cold assassin they're using to wipe out the past . . . before it blows their future to hell.
"Every chapter crackles with sex, violence, and corruption."
--The Washington Post
"Fast-paced, attention-holding, hard-hitting."
--Chicago Tribune
"A slam-bang ending that should shock the most jaded thriller reader."
--The Associated Press
Movie details for Sharky's MachineThe movie was released in 1981. Sharky's Machine was produced by Warner Home Video. More information on the movie is available on Amazon.com and also IMDb. Actors on this movie include Rachel Ward, Val Avery, Bernie Casey, Charles Durning, John Fiedler, Vittorio Gassman, Darryl Hickman, Earl Holliman, Dan Inosanto, Brian Keith, Tony King, Richard Libertini, Carol Locatell, Joseph Mascolo, James O'Connell, Suzee Pai, Hari Rhodes, Henry Silva and Aarika Wells. |
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Burt Reynolds was getting restless with the good ol' boy screen image he cultivated in Smokey & the Bandit and numerous car-chase flicks of the mid-to-late 1970s, and this brutal 1981 thriller presented the actor with an interesting change of pace. Reynol... Read More
Burt Reynolds was getting restless with the good ol' boy screen image he cultivated in Smokey & the Bandit and numerous car-chase flicks of the mid-to-late 1970s, and this brutal 1981 thriller presented the actor with an interesting change of pace. Reynolds directed the film as well, and there was a lot at stake for him both personally and professionally, so Sharky's Machine--based on a gutsy novel by William Diehl--has an urgent, no-nonsense quality that lifts it above most comparably sleazy thrillers. The plot may be sordid, but Reynolds's handling of it is not. This adds another element of freshness to the story of a demoted Atlanta vice cop (Reynolds) who pursues a personal vendetta against a crime boss (Vittorio Gassman) after falling in love with a stunning beauty (Rachel Ward) from the mobster's stable of high-priced prostitutes. The climactic shootout is violent and bloody in keeping with movies of the period (when jarring brutality was beginning to be commonplace in Hollywood films), but Reynolds doesn't go overboard. Sharky's Machine doesn't pretend to be anything more (or less) than a tough-as-nails crime movie, and it's one of Reynolds's most unusual and intelligent films. --Jeff Shannon