From Publishers Weekly
In this strangely fascinating riff off classic noir, baseball slugger Jake Thomas gets a hero's welcome on a quick trip home to Canarsie. With millions in endorsements on the line, he's anxious to announce a wedding date with his high school sweetheart, Christina, hoping to counteract a statutory rape claim that's about to go public. But his fiancée has been seeing former pitcher Ryan Rossetti, who blew out his arm and now works a dead-end job as a house painter. Insanely jealous of the "J.T. fever" sweeping the hood, the self-involved Ryan is determined to keep Christina for himself. Starr (Twisted City) is a master at portraying Brooklyn as a dark corner of hell (and even gives genre fans a taste of one of the sexual obsessions of past noir master David Goodis), but J.T and Ryan prove almost too unpleasant to take. When the ex-con Saiquan comes into play, riding along for some payback on a gang shooting, the plot jumps into overdrive and heads mercilessly for Starr's always bleak finish line. Author tour. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
In high school, Jake Thomas and Ryan Rossetti were two of Brooklyn's most promising baseball players. Jake's natural talent carried him to fame and fortune, and Ryan's love of the curveball led him to elbow surgery and a $10-per-hour job as a painter. The one thing Ryan has that Jake doesn't is the love of Jake's fiancee, Christina--and J. T. is coming home to plan the wedding. Starr's characters, who inhabit unglamorous Canarsie, are capital-L Losers, and it's fun to watch their dimwitted decision making (J. T. thinks that announcing his wedding date will balance the bad PR of a statutory rape charge). They scheme and strive, exerting a remarkable amount of energy to end up, well, pretty much where they were. With his feel for the streets and his diverse cast of characters, this slice of the confused life reads a bit like George Pelecanos or Richard Price without the philosophical heft. Starr sometimes seems like he is coasting, but in his seventh book, he puts it in gear to give us a wickedly entertaining ride down a dead-end street. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
Praise for Jason Starr and Lights Out:
"Lights Out has the New York sound, the energy, dialogue that's on the beat…. Read it and you'll go hunting for Jason Starr's other books, I promise."
--Elmore Leonard, author of The Hot Kid
--Elmore Leonard, author of The Hot Kid
"Lights Out is a fast, furious page-turner. This book is a huge treat."
--Jeffery Deaver, author of The Cold Moon
"Starr's latest crime novel sizzles with streetwise dialogue and furious emotional energy…Highly recommended."
--Library Journal
"A wickedly entertaining ride down a dead-end street."
--Booklist
"A welcome addition to [Starr's] body of quality work."
--Chicago Sun-Times
"Jason Starr is hypnotically good---if you miss him, you're missing some of the best new writing there is."
--Lee Child, author of One Shot: A Jack Reacher Novel
"Starr's finest work to date...a dark, brooding character study that falls somewhere between The Wanderers by Richard Price and Dennis Lehane's Mystic River." --Bookreporter
--Booklist
"A welcome addition to [Starr's] body of quality work."
--Chicago Sun-Times
"Jason Starr is hypnotically good---if you miss him, you're missing some of the best new writing there is."
--Lee Child, author of One Shot: A Jack Reacher Novel
"Starr's finest work to date...a dark, brooding character study that falls somewhere between The Wanderers by Richard Price and Dennis Lehane's Mystic River." --Bookreporter
Book Description
"Lights Out is a fast, furious page-turner. This book is a huge treat."---Jeffery Deaver, author of The Cold Moon: A Lincoln Rhyme Novel
From Barry and Anthony Award-winning author Jason Starr comes a story of two friends divided by chance and reunited during a long Brooklyn weekend that will change both of their lives forever. Ryan Rossetti and Jake Thomas were the two Major League-bound rivals on their high school baseball team, heading straight into history as the first two of Canarsie's favorite sons to make it out and make it big. Until Ryan hurt his pitching arm and landed a ten-dollar-an-hour life as a house painter. Lucky Jake made it all the way, and he and his ten-million-dollar signing bonus are heading back for a publicity-motivated homecoming weekend that has all of Brooklyn waiting to explode in celebration.
But he's got a nasty surprise in store: Ryan is involved in an intense, addictive relationship with Jake's fiancée Christina, who now faces a choice between love in a Brooklyn tenement or a heartless marriage on Easy Street. Neither man, nor the woman who now stands between them, has any idea what's about to play out in the streets they once all called home. Lights Out is vintage Jason Starr, a razor-sharp crime novel that brilliantly combines biting social satire, explosive suspense, and honest, revealing human drama.
From the Back Cover
Praise for Jason Starr and Lights Out
"Lights Out has the New York sound, the energy, dialogue that's on the beat…. Read it and you'll go hunting for Jason Starr's other books, I promise."--Elmore Leonard, author of The Hot Kid
"Jason Starr is the real deal in a world where a lot of people are faking it, a fearless, pitiless writer. The result is a compelling, fierce body of work by a prodigious talent."--Laura Lippman, author of To the Power of Three
"Jason Starr is hypnotically good---if you miss him, you're missing some of the best new writing there is."--Lee Child, author of One Shot: A Jack Reacher Novel
"Jason Starr is a leader in the new noir movement."--George Pelecanos, author of Drama City
"Lights Out is compulsively readable, sidesplittingly funny and absolutely merciless. . . . Starr's fresh take on our flawed human condition may bring howls of outrage but in the tradition of the great satirists, you can't stop reading."--Denise Hamilton, author of Prisoner of Memory
"Jason Starr is hypnotically good---if you miss him, you're missing some of the best new writing there is."--Lee Child, author of One Shot: A Jack Reacher Novel
"Jason Starr is a leader in the new noir movement."--George Pelecanos, author of Drama City
"Lights Out is compulsively readable, sidesplittingly funny and absolutely merciless. . . . Starr's fresh take on our flawed human condition may bring howls of outrage but in the tradition of the great satirists, you can't stop reading."--Denise Hamilton, author of Prisoner of Memory
About the Author
Jason Starr is the multi-award-winning author of six previous novels. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, and now lives in Manhattan with his wife and daughter.
Visit his Web site at www.jasonstarr.com.
Visit his Web site at www.jasonstarr.com.
