The Max [Mass Market Paperback]

When we last left Max Fisher (a.k.a., "The M.A.X.", New York's baddest hip-hop drug dealer), at the end of Slide, he was being led off to jail. Ken Bruen and Jason Starr's third collaboration -- not coincidentally titled The Max -- picks up with Max trying to get his bearings as the new little fish in a big pond. But Max still thinks like a CEO and knows how to play the game, and before too long, he is ruling the roost with the blacks, the Aryans, and the Latinos all thinking he's with them.

Enter Paula Segal, a midlist mystery writer just demoted to "cult" status ("She thought only those creepy noir guys got demoted to cult. She'd never even written a short story for Akashic"). She's looking to revive her career with a true-crime book about Max -- and hoping that the Edgar Award she'll undoubtedly win for it will help her meet her latest crush, Laura Lippman.

Meanwhile, Max's ex-fiancée, Angela Petrakos, has just arrived in Greece (she's of Irish-Greek descent and already tried Ireland, where she just didn't feel quite as Irish as she does in the states) and hooked up with a Brit named Sebastian. Not only does he have that accent, but he also looks just like Lee Child! (Too bad his idol is Tom Ripley.)

Readers of Bruen and Starr's previous books are already aware how much fun they like to have with real authors in their stories. Chapter 3 alone contains a great deal of inside information about the workings of the crime genre that even partially knowledgable fans will get a kick out of. After the disappointment that was Slide, I'm happy to say that The Max is a return to form for the duo, though they still seem to prefer "extreme" storytelling for its own sake.

On the downside, for the most part Paula Segal is a wasted opportunity. After a very intriguing introductory chapter, she is never used to her fullest potential -- even if she does quote Babe while pleasuring herself. The cover painting by Glen Orbik (Branded Woman, The Colorado Kid, Money Shot), however, is just the opposite. It is everything it wants to be. In fact, in some ways, it is even more successful in fulfilling its intentions than The Max is.

Despite the unevenness of the trilogy that began with Bust -- and signs point to it not becoming a tetralogy -- Ken Bruen and Jason Starr offer an original ride that is practically a genre unto itself. Here's hoping that these collaborations lead readers to the authors' separate works (though they write very different separately than they do together), or that they will decide to work together once again (and maybe give Paula her own book).

This was a fun read. Max and all the characters are totally off the wall and that is the point. This is not a "serious" book, but one to laugh along with the improbable plot. I discovered this publisher by visiting the book store in Houston that gave it a start. So far, I have not been disappointed by any of the offerings. Try "Money Shot".

In the genre of comic crime novels, the undisputed master is Donald Westlake. Westlake, however, has been writing these books for over four decades, so eventually he will have to have a successor. Ken Bruen and Jason Starr are making their attempt to take that mantle with their books about Max Fisher and Angela Petrakos. The Max is the third book in this series and the first one I've read.

The Max consists of several storylines that will take most of the book to converge. In the main storyline, Max Fisher is sent to prison for crimes he committed in previous novels. This middle-aged crook has an over-inflated sense of self-importance that makes it hard to grasp the gravity of his situation. Briefly a drug lord, he thinks that prison will be almost a vacation, but he doesn't get much respect, at least not until a rumor goes around about a certain mutilation he once did. Then he is King of the Cons, but he will still have enemies.

Meanwhile, Angela, Max's beautiful ex-lover who is willing to prostitute herself for any worthwhile cause (as long as there's something in it for her) has fled to Greece where she takes up with Lee Child look-alike Sebastian. Sebastian is a con artist himself, leading to an edgy relationship that doesn't improve when Angela kills her sleazy landlord after a sexual assault and she makes Sebastian cover up the crime. Soon enough, he will ditch her and she will wind up in jail herself, where it will take her feminine wiles to break loose.

A third storyline follows minor mystery writer Paula Segal who spends more time thinking about being a best-selling writer than actually doing anything about it. As her fiction flounders, she takes on a true crime assignment about Max's life, getting her tangled up with Fisher in the process.

The Max is filled with characters that are unpleasant but somehow still somewhat likeable (or at least interesting). It is also designed for mystery fans: if you are unfamiliar with the genre, you may not get much of the humor which is filled with inside jokes. It's a fun enough book and I may go back and read its predecessors. Bruen and Starr may not (yet) be the new masters of comic crime fiction, but they are at least not out of the running.

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