Just Finished Reading: Slide by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

Based in present day New York and Dublin this book follows the criminal escapades of dug dealer Max Fisher, his ex-girlfriend Angela Petrakos and a serial-killer who goes by the name of Slide. Without a single redeeming feature between them they go through life stupidly blundering their way from drug deal to murder to kidnapping and much else besides.

This was actually a painfully bad book to read. Probably the only reason I finished it was because by the time I’d given up on the idea that it could possibly get better I was already two-thirds of the way through. The only way I could work my way past the uninteresting characters and the equally uninventive ‘plot’ was by treating the whole thing as a parody of the Noir style. The authors seemed to be attempting to overcome their blatant inability to write above the juvenile level by piling ridiculous characters on top of stupid situations – or was it the other way around? There was a quite an amazing amount of pointless swearing and meaningless sex scenes – in both senses of the word. Quite possibly one of the worst books I’ve actually managed to finish in years. Luckily another book by these pair was easy to delete off my Amazon Wish List before I wasted money on it. Dodged a real bullet there I think. Avoid.