Discount Price: $6.99
Price fluctuation possible.
How soon does it ship: Normal ship time within one day
Shipping? Absolutely FREE if you qualify for Super Saver Shipping.
Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN num: 9780843957761
ISBN number: 084395776X
Label: Hard Crime Case
Manufacturer: Hard Crime Case
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 221
Printing Date: October 02, 2007
Publishing house: Hard Crime Case
Sale Popularity Level: 47676
Studio: Hard Crime Case
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
-
Just when I thought that Bruen and Starr had written one amazing noir masterpiece in the form of "BUST" they do it again. I was overjoyed reading that novel because it felt like it would give Elmore Leonard and Tarantino a run for their money. Then, without warning, they created the "Godfather Part II" of sequels in the form of "Slide"!!!! When last we left our buddy Max Fisher, he was suspected of his wife's and his niece's murder (which he did), his business was in the toilet, he was being blackmailed, he was drinking heavily, he was being questioned for the death of a cop, and he even got herpes from his girlfriend, who went back to Ireland.
In "Slide" things go from worse to #@(*$&ing god awful. He thinks hes got it made by becoming a mid level crack dealer, but not to give anything away, everything goes sideways real quick. Another A+ for these two freaks.
Rated by buyers -
When two authors with very distinctive styles collaborate, one's or the other's personality usually dominates. Or the resulting novel is such a mishmash that you can easily tell who wrote which section. Luckily, Ken Bruen and Jason Starr have somehow managed once again to avoid that with Slide, which contains one of the smoothest narrative noices ever put on paper.
Slide is the sequel to the authors' very first collaboration, Bust (also published by Hard Case Crime). That very first book was my pick for one of the best books of 2006, but this one doesn't quite live up to it.
Both Bruen and Starr are masters of darkness in their preferred settings -- Bruen in Ireland, Starr in New York -- and Slide jumps from the one setting to the other with ease. Max Fisher, former computer-company mogul, has changed careers: he is now The M.A.X., a "gangsta" crack dealer complete with his own "ho," Felicia (who turns out to be not as dumb as her massively augmented breasts would seem to imply).
Max's ex-secretary/ex-mistress Angela Petrakos (read Bust for the details of their history together) has gone back to Ireland (where she doesn't seem quite so "Irish" as she did in New York) and has hooked up with a lunatic named Slide (because he says "I'm gonna let it slide" to those who wrong him -- and then doesn't!) who is planning a career as a famous serial killer. Only Slide is under the impression that he has kidnapped Angela.
Slide is extremely dark fun all the way. Bruen and Starr put their characters (who are hardly likeable, even on their best days) through wringer after wringer (a Bruen specialty) just for their and our amusement. And it is quite a ride. I've never seen (except maybe from these two) a novel with no characters the reader is intended to identify with -- simply a cast of hateful losers who deserve everything they get. I can't wait to see what Bruen and Starr cook up for their reported third novel together.
But unfortunately, all this proves to be just so much decoration, there possibly to hide the fact that there's not a very interesting story taking place. Whether this is due to "sequelitis," "sophomore slump," or simply "second story in a trilogy syndrome" (see Back to the Future II and The Two Towers for further evidence of this phenomenon) is not for me to say. All I know is that Slide was much more difficult to finish than its predecessor -- and, after finishing it, I could remember certain scenes (fans should watch out for cameos from two particular authors) or specific turns of phrase, but not much actual plot. It is as if the authors knew they had a cup of really weak coffee and tried to add enough cream and sugar for us to not notice there wasn't much else in the cup.
That said, Slide is probably still going to be unlike anything else you read this year. It is a very different kind of comic noir, and one that you'll likely want to revisit. Also, once again artist Richard B. Farrell (Bust, Lemons Never Lie, Robbie's Wife) has produced one of the more evocative book covers I've seen lately. This only adds to the effect of what is already a rollicking, fun ride, just one that may not linger in your memory.
Rated by buyers -
Following up where Bust leaves off, Slide is a rollicking good time ride with two of the main protagonists from the very first book; Max Fisher, a hustler so driven he hustles himself first, and Angela Petrakos, a VERY calculating accomplice. They are joined by a plethora for characters who are well writ and capture the zeitgeist of a culture shot through with drugs, absolute worship of money, and the worst excesses of popular culture.
There are so many great lines in this book. Bruen has always been good at the throwaway gem, but Starr seems to have kicked him up to a whole new level. Dozens of times in the book Max starts to get a clue that maybe he isn't quite as a) appealing to women, b) controlled in his use of drugs, or c) quite the criminal mastermind he conceives himself to be. But then with a wonderful turn of phrase he dismissed any self doubt and jumps back in on his own Teflon chuted sleigh ride to hell. Only George Pelecanos does these wry asides as well, although Starr/Breun's drip with sarcasm as opposed to the irony of Pelecanos. But then, the authors are on very different missions with their works.
Of course, there has to be another protagonist and Starr and Bruen introduced Slide, a captivating, totally amoral psychopath who has delusional problems of his own.
The plot that ensues is just this side of far fetched, just this side of madcap, and a heck of a lot of fun. I read this book on a 6 hour flight from Newark to San Francisco, and laughed for the whole three hours it took to read.
So it is a lot of fun, but if you step back and think about it, it takes damn good writers to publish something this tightly plotted, this economical with words, and this ironic. Not only a great read, but also a very well constructed work.
If you read this, you must read Bust first, or you will miss a lot of the plot.
Rated by buyers -
Ken Bruen and Jason Starr pick up where they left off in Bust following the twisted and demented lives of Max Fisher and his Irish-Greek ex-girlfriend Angela Petrakos as their paths and fates cross - yet again. Another page turner!
Rated by buyers -
There is no publisher more hard-boiled than Hard Case Crime. And there is no author combination more hard-boiled than Ken Bruen and Jason Starr. These gentlemen, through the auspices of Hard Case, blessed the reading world in 2006 with BUST, a seamless collaboration that was as dark, outrageous and hilarious --- sometimes within the same sentence --- as anything within recent memory. They have seen fit to produce a repeat performance in 2007, which fulfills the anticipation created by its predecessor.
The erstwhile couple at the nexus of BUST makes a return visit in SLIDE, even though they embark on this wild night's ride on separate continents. Max Fisher begins SLIDE at the end of a roaring drug- and alcohol-fueled ride that deposits him in... No, I'm not going to tell you, because half the fun is finding out along with Max. Let's just say that Max is in the United States, about as down as he can get in the one place in the country he is least likely to be. Angela Petrakos, meanwhile, is in Dublin, Ireland --- by choice and with eyes wide open --- but she is gradually reaching the end of her tether.
Max digs himself out of his hole by returning to sales, his natural vocation. He was selling computers in BUST; in SLIDE, he...well, let's just say he is not performing that function anymore but is fulfilling a need nonetheless. And before you know it, he is living high and behind the high cotton back in New York. Angela does what she does best, and naturally she hooks up with a really twisted, demented chap named Slide, who wants to become a serial killer on the order of Dahmer, Bundy and Gacy. Slide is up to 13 by the time they meet. When circumstances require that they flee the Emerald Isle, New York of course is where they want to be. Max is also in the Big Apple, and, well, it's just a small town, isn't it? By the time all is said and done, the crosses are doubled and tripled; one will walk away, one will be led away and one will be carried away. The other half of the fun I mentioned earlier is finding out who.
What makes SLIDE a great book, of course, is the frenetic combination of Bruen and Starr, who write as if conjoined at the brain. Starr is a master at digging and probing into the molecules of the mortar that cements relationships for bad or worse, while Bruen's ability to bring a stygian humour to the worst of humanity's most malevolent foibles is unsurpassed. Put them together in a room, and just like the back jacket says, SLIDE may be the most shocking book you'll ever read. It may also be one of the best.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
Find other books like this one:
