Review of The Max

By now you probably already know how you feel about Ken Bruen and Jason Starr’s ongoing collaboration for Hard Case Crime. Bust and Slide are novels that inspire strong feelings. Readers either love the ongoing black comedic adventures of Max Fisher and Angela Petrakos, or they’re repulsed by the glib violence and the irredeemable nature of the main characters. There are probably a lot more of the latter than the former, and the authors know they’re not going to be making the New York Times bestseller list with this particular series, so they have fun, making their characters over the top and poking fun at some real NYT bestselling authors as well as the publishing industry itself, which is scared to touch the sort of book the authors have written.

The Max (Hard Case Crime, 2008) picks up right where Slide left off. Max has been sent to Attica after being convicted of drug dealing, and Angela has made it to Greece, where she is hanging out and spreading herpes. After a rough start, Max adjusts to prison life and hangs onto all his trademark delusions, and Angela hooks up with an English con-man with an uncanny resemblance to author Lee Child. Throw in a failing crime writer with an unhealthy obsession with Laura Lippman and a vengeance obsessed Greek, and it makes for a volatile cocktail. No prizes for guessing who the only person left standing at the end is.

The Max is funny and anarchic, but it is not quite as good as Slide, which was a wonderful satire. There are still laugh out loud moments, but not as many. The Max is also not that entertaining as a stand-alone. Readers should read the first two books before approaching this one. The authors drop in just enough explanation to prevent readers who are not familiar with the series from getting lost, but not enough for them to fully appreciate the humor in the characters’ situations. Of course, even if you’ve read one of the previous books and hate Starr and Bruen’s series, or you aren’t inclined to start at the beginning, you could always just buy The Max for its cover, which is wonderful and stands out even among Hard Case’s consistently great artwork.

Preview The Max

If you're like me, you loved Ken Bruen and Jason Starr's last collaboration, Slide. So you'll be thrilled to see thatThe Max, the third novel in their ongoing series, is up on Hard Case's Web site. It's slated for a September 2008 publication. Just check out the cover. You know the book is going to kick ass.

Review of Slide

Slide (Hard Case Crime, 2007) is slick. With the follow up to last year’s Bust, Ken Bruen and Jason Starr have raised the bar. Bust, which introduced spineless businessman Max Fisher and his shallow squeeze Angela Petrarkos, was a black comedy of errors; noir with a grin. The sequel is comic, but it’s not just slapstick. It’s satire.

The latest installment in the planned trilogy follows Max, who is busy reinventing himself after losing everything, and Angela, who is busy in Ireland, trying to find a man to take care of her. Max reinvents himself as a drug dealer, and Angela, as is her custom, takes up with Slide, an aspiring serial killer, who’s having some trouble with the kidnapping business because he lacks the self-control necessary to not kill the victim before he gets paid. The novel is written in a breezy, casual tone, and there are plenty of laughs. After Slide and Angela hook up, he concocts a half-assed plan to kidnap…wait for it…Keith Richards. He doesn’t get Keith, but he does get someone else most readers will recognize. Another familar figure has a run in with Slide later in the book, and anyone who doesn’t laugh at these scenes probably has a sense of humor that runs to knock-knock jokes. Still, amusing as it is, the Slide and Angela storyline is not as compelling as Max’s story. He steals the show.

Slide begins with Max Fisher at rock bottom. He wakes up after a world class drunk in a hotel in Alabama, with no money and no idea how he got there. This does not discourage Max, a self made man, who used to have it all. In no time, he has struck up relationship with Kyle, the dull witted desk clerk with a crack habit. In true entrepreneurial fashion, Max sees an opportunity, and he goes from penniless drunk to high living crack dealer in no time flat. Max Fisher is no more self aware than a cockroach, and, like a roach, he refuses to die. A legend in his own mind, Max, who starts calling himself “The M.A.X.”, is certain he is a celebrity. Fueled by coke, he daydreams about writing a column for The Wall Street Journal and having his own HBO series. His occasional glimmers of insight into the true nature of his situation are brief, and they always fade just as quickly as they arrive. Nothing can shake his relentless, delusional optimism. Max Fisher is an ugly American. He is a testament to economic opportunity and a cautionary tale at the same time. In that respect, he’s exactly like Donald Trump.

The authors’ aim, however, is not to make a point. They are out to have fun. Max was not created to make the reader contemplate the evils of capitalism or the insidious distortion of values that celebrity culture produces. Bruen and Starr set out to see how far they could push a stereotype. Max’s story not only satirizes American culture, it also satirizes noir. In noir, a character is usually undone by his desire. He wants money. He wants the woman. He wants peace of mind. When a noir character goes after those things, breaking society’s rules in the process, he is destroyed. In that sense, noir is a very conservative genre. The protagonist must suffer for his misdeeds. Not so with Max. He is greedy, gluttonous, slothful, lustful, prideful, wrathful and envious, and he still he slides by. People die because of his actions and he feels nothing. His existence a testament to the absurdity of the idea of justice.

When Max is hustled into a cop car, headed for a jail cell, he contemplates giving the cops a lock of his hair to sell on Ebay. Prison’s going to be great for his career, he thinks. He’s driven away with a grin on his face. He’s grinning at you, dear reader, because the joke is on you, and it’s pretty fucking funny.

New Spinetingler

If you want to waste some serious time, go check out the new Spinetingler, where Sandra Ruttan interviews Allan Guthrie and Ken Bruen. There's tons of good stuff, so go ahead and read it. Productivity is overrated anyway.

A Bedtime Story from Ken Bruen

In their last newsletter Bleak House Books announced they would be publishing authors reading their stories from These Guns for Hire. Now, three weeks late, I finally noticed that, true to their word, they have posted Ken Bruen reading his short story "Punk." Enjoy.

Crucifixion Convergence

I was kind of stunned when I saw this today. I read Allan Guthrie's Hard Man a couple of weeks ago, and (Stop reading here if you don't want to learn a plot point of Guthrie's new novel.)


it also prominently features a crucifixion. What are the odds that two prominent UK crime writers would both use a two-thousand year old method of execution in novels that are coming out at the same time? Was there some real crime they were both drawing from for inspiration, or is it an instance of hard-boiled minds thinking alike? I'll be curious to see how Bruen handles it, because I've been wrestling with that particular incident in Guthrie's book. It was an unsettling plot development and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand I was repulsed, and felt like the act needed more explanation, but at the same time I couldn't quit reading. I'm very curious to hear what Guthrie has to say about it, and will be first in line to listen to his interview at Behind the Black Mask, when it is posted tommorrow.