BUST starts out with a classic noir scenario – a man wants to get rid of his wife, so he hires somebody to kill her . . . and then, Things Go Wrong. And they keep Going Wrong for the next 250-odd pages.
Despite the old-fashioned plot, authors Ken Bruen and Jason Starr (certainly two of the most popular writers in the hardboiled/noir genre at the moment) come up with a generally fresh approach to the material. BUST is well-written, with great dialogue, and is very funny in places despite the grim and sometimes grotesque subject matter. In the end, though, this is a book I admire more than actually like, because everyone in it is irredeemably evil, stupid, or both. There’s nobody to root for. Of course, not everybody cares about having characters to root for, and for those readers, I’d recommend BUST very highly. It falls into the category of being a fine book but just not to my taste.
2 comments:
Jason Starr's characters are usually not someone to root for, but I always develop a certain sympathy and warmth for them, even though they are usually lonely sociopaths. Do I recognize myself in them? Certainly hope not, but there's always a possibility that my life would've gone wrong in some place or another...
I usually feel like you do and don't care for books where there is nobody to pull for, but this book was an exception. Even though there was not a single likable character in the book, I enjoyed it. It was also the first time I had read anything by either author.
Danny
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