Bust
Authors: Ken Bruen,Jason Starr
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #General, #Hard-Boiled
“Ken Bruen has become the crime novelist to read. He is... revolutionizing the art of crime fiction.”
—George Pelecanos
“Jason Starr is the first writer of his generation to convincingly update the modern crime novel... It might be new-school noir but like the classics of the genre it has a brutal escalation of tension, pungent dialogue, a hard-boiled simplicity and grace. It’s also darkly funny and a pure pleasure to read. As you race through it you realize that Jim Thompson has just moved to Manhattan.”
—Bret Easton Ellis
“[Bruen has written] the most startling and original crime novel of the decade.”
—GQ
“Starr has plumbed the shallows of his brittle characters and their selfish lives, depicting them in a hard-edged style that is clean, cold and extremely chilling.”
—The New York Times
“Bruen confirms his rightful place among the finest noir stylists of his generation. This is a remarkable book from a singular talent”
—Publishers Weekly
“Starr paints it blacker than black, putting his compelling characters through the wringer before hanging them out to dry.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“
The Guards
blew me away. It’s dark, funny, and moving... Bruen’s tale is a potent draft of desire and hopelessness, conviction and surrender, inadvertent heroism and unexpected grace. This is mystery writing of a high order.”
—T. Jefferson Parker
“Streamline as a model’s hips, dark as the inside of a dog’s gut,
Twisted City
is a hip, white collar update on the James Cain, Jim Thompson style novel with a seasoning all its own. Jason Starr is a unique talent, and
Twisted City
is one unique book.”
—Joe R. Lansdale
“
The Guards
is an astounding novel, a poetic account of a desperation as deep and cold as the North Sea, retribution, and resurrection. It’s so good I can’t think of it as a crime novel. It’s a fine book with some crimes.”
—James Crumley
“Every few years you read a crime novel that jars you so completely that you begin to doubt your entire approach to writing. These rare books show you a whole new way of doing things. In the past six years, I’ve read three crime novels that have had that effect on me:
Blue Lonesome
by Bill Pronzini,
The Ax
by Donald E. Westlake, and now
Nothing Personal
by Jason Starr.”
—Ed Gorman
“Bruen is a brilliant, lyrical, deeply moving writer whose characters are so sharply portrayed they almost walk off the page.”
—The Denver Post
“Starr is such a polished writer that once you start reading it’s painful to tear yourself away.”
—Time Out
“Suffice it to say that fans of Roddy Doyle, James Sallis, Samuel Beckett, Irvine Welsh, Frederick Exley, Patrick McCabe, George Pelecanos, Ian Rankin, and Chuck Palahniuk will all find something to like, love, or obsess over in this stiff shot of evil chased with heart-breaking irony. Highly recommended.”
—Booklist (on Bruen)
“From the first page of this noir thriller, you know things are only going to get worse, but you can’t stop reading.”
—Newsweek (on Starr)
“A Celtic Dashiell Hammett.”
—Philadelphia Inquirer (on Bruen)
“A throwback to the spare, snappy writing of Jim Thompson and James M. Cain.”
—Entertainment Weekly (on Starr)
“Raw and fiercely funny.”
—Seattle Times (on Bruen)
“The King of Noir is back. It doesn’t get any darker or funnier than this... The best novel of the year!”
—Bookends (on Starr)
“[An] amazing writer, who can blend the darkest situation with a wisecrack that provides the perception that links life with death... The dialogue is priceless... If you haven’t discovered Bruen, it’s time you did.”
—Crime Spree
“A dead-end soul in the grand tradition of James Cain... Starr has an instinct for outlining the kind of life that
Black Mask
readers gobbled up in the 1930s — the life of extinguished opportunity and of petty troubles that accumulate, somehow, into major crimes.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Bruen is an original, grimly hilarious and gloriously Irish.”
—Washington Post
“Jason Starr is terrific... tough and real and brilliant.”
—Andrew Klavan
“A dazzling piece of work. Bruen’s style is clipped, caustic, heartbreaking and often hilarious.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“The kind of book you read with a wince, but you read it straight through because you can’t put it down. Starr [is] a terrifically taut writer.”
—Baltimore Sun
“Defiantly fresh and original... Bruen is one helluva a writer.”
—January Magazine
“Ruthlessly good; definitively noir...[Starr is] a master of the genre.”
—The Literary Review
When he got back to his apartment, Bobby went right to the second bedroom, which he had turned into a darkroom, and started developing the film.
About twenty minutes later, Bobby called the lobby and asked the doorman to send a maintenance guy up to his apartment. When the little Jamaican guy arrived, Bobby asked him to take out a big box from the back of his hallway closet.
“I thought you had a problem with your shower?”
“Yeah, well I don’t,” Bobby said.
He was a strong little guy, but the box was so heavy it took all his strength to carry it a few feet. He was out of breath.
“What the fuck do you have in there?”
“Oh, just some old clothes,” Bobby said, handing him a crisp twenty-dollar bill.
When the guy was gone, Bobby opened the box, tearing off the layers of masking tape. Finally, he got it open and removed the bubble wrap. He had three sawed-off shotguns, a couple of rifles, a MAC-11 submachine pistol, two Uzis, some smaller guns, and a gym bag filled with boxes of ammo.
Bobby was sweating. He wheeled into the bathroom and splashed cold water against his face, then he stared at himself in the mirror. This was happening a lot lately — looking in the mirror, expecting to see a young guy, but seeing an old man instead. Maybe forty-seven wasn’t old for some people, but it was old for a guy who’d spent fourteen years in prison, one year in Iraq, and three years in a fucking wheelchair.
It was time to get back to work...
SOME OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS YOU WILL ENJOY:
GRIFTER’S GAME
by Lawrence Block
FADE TO BLONDE
by Max Phillips
TOP OF THE HEAP
by Erle Stanley Gardner
LITTLE GIRL LOST
by Richard Aleas
TWO FOR THE MONEY
by Max Allan Collins
THE CONFESSION
by Domenic Stansberry
HOME IS THE SAILOR
by Day Keene
KISS HER GOODBYE
by Allan Guthrie
361
by Donald E. Westlake
PLUNDER OF THE SUN
by David Dodge
BRANDED WOMAN
by Wade Miller
DUTCH UNCLE
by Peter Pavia
THE GIRL WITH THE LONG GREEN HEART
by Lawrence Block
THE GUTTER AND THE GRAVE
by Ed McBain
NIGHT WALKER
by Donald Hamilton
A TOUCH OF DEATH
by Charles Williams
SAY IT WITH BULLETS
by Richard Powell
WITNESS TO MYSELF
by Seymour Shubin
by
Ken Bruen
and
Jason Starr
A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK
(HCC-020)
First Hard Case Crime edition: May 2006
Published by
Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street
London
SE1
0UP
in collaboration with Winterfall LLC
Copyright © 2006 by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr
Cover painting copyright © 2006 by R. B. Farrell
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Print edition ISBN 978-0-85768-310-6
E-book ISBN 978-0-85768-386-1
Design direction by Max Phillips
The name “Hard Case Crime” and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.
Visit us on the web at
www.HardCaseCrime.com
For Reed Farrel Coleman, La Weinman (Sarah), and Jon, Ruth, and Jennifer Jordan, ro-bust friends
One
People with opinions just go around bothering one another.
T
HE
B
UDDHA
In the back of Famiglia Pizza on Fiftieth and Broadway, Max Fisher was dabbing his plain slice with a napkin, trying to soak up as much grease as he could, when a man sat down diagonally across from him with a large cupful of ice. The guy looked nothing like the big, strong-looking hit man Max was expecting — he looked more like a starving greyhound. He couldn’t have weighed more than 130 pounds, had a medium build, startling blue eyes, a thin scar down his right cheek, and a blur of long gray hair. And something was very weird about his mouth. It looked like someone had put broken glass in there and mangled his lips.
The guy smiled, said, “You’re wondering what happened to me mouth.”
Max knew the guy would be Irish, but he didn’t think he’d be
so
Irish, that talking to him would be like talking to one of those Irish bartenders at that place uptown who could never understand a fucking word he was saying. He’d ask for a Bud Light and they’d stare back at him with a dumb look, like something was wrong with the way
he
was talking, and he’d think, Who’s the potato eater just off the boat, pal? Me or you?
Max was about to answer then thought, Fuck that, I’m the boss, and asked, “Are you...?”
The man put a finger to his messed-up lips, made the sound “Sh... sh,” then added, “No names.” He sucked on
the ice, made a big production out of it, pushing his lips out with the cube so Max had to see them. Then, finally, he stuck the cube in his cheek like a chipmunk and asked, “You’ll be Max?”
Max wondered what had happened to no names. He was going to say something about it, but then figured this guy was just trying to play head games with him so he just nodded.