Slide [Mass Market Paperback]

Following up where Bust leaves off, Slide is a rollicking good time ride with two of the main protagonists from the 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.

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 humor 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

If you love Ken Bruen and Jason Starr like I do (even though I thought Starr's latest was disappointing), this is for you. You can crank this one out in a couple of hours. Never mind that the plot doesn't make much sense. That's not the point. This is all about memorable characters and terrific prose. The action is fast and furious and none of the main characters have any redeeming values. The subject matter is money, drugs and, stangely enough, looking for love in all of the wrong places. This is the second outing for Angela and Max (Read "Bust" by the same authors)and hopefully we haven't heard the last from them. If you like tasting the grit in your reading, don't mind ultra-violence and having some laughs along the way, this is for you.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 15 reviews  4.4 out of 5 stars