Inside Straight by Ray Banks

My review of Inside Straight by Ray Banks is up at spinetingler.

Give it a look over HERE.

If you're unfamiliar with the work of Mr Banks, you'll find reviews of damn near everything he's ever done by hitting up his name in the labels below.

Wolf Tickets by Ray Banks

My review of Wolf Tickets by Ray Banks is up at spinetingler.

Check that shit out HERE.

Just when you thought we were out of good book titles, Banks pulls Wolf Tickets from a Tom Waits interview.

Best title since Anthony Neil Smith's Hogdoggin'.

Crime Factory Vol. 2 No. 9

My Crime Sleeper Double Feature on Paul Schrader's Blue Collar (1978) and American Gigolo (1980) entitled "In America, Establishment Fuck You!" is in the new issue of Crime Factory on pages 94-99.

Check that shit out HERE.

Really great issue this month, with shit from Ray Banks, Tom Piccirilli, Scott Phillips and a hell of a lot more folks in there as well.

Dead Money by Ray Banks

My review of Dead Money by Ray Banks is up at spinetingler.

Check that shit out HERE.

I've got just about everything dude's written reviewed here on the NoN blog so hit up his name in the labels to find out more about his shit.

Gun by Ray Banks

My review of Ray Banks' Gun is up at spinetingler.

Check that shit out HERE.

Also, hit up dude's name in the labels at the bottom of the page if you're unfamiliar with his work.

I'm kind of a, you know, huge fucking fan.

California by Ray Banks

Ray Banks has a new novella out called California.

I read it. I reviewed it. It's kind of, like, what I do.

See the results of that process HERE.

No More Heroes by Ray Banks

My review of the third novel in the Cal Innes series, No More Heroes, by Ray Banks is up at spinetingler.

Check it out HERE.

Hell, if you clickety-fucking-click on Ray's name down in the "labels" at the bottom of this post, you'll find reviews of all the Innes novels.

Yeah, they're fairly fucking positive, I suppose.

Beast of Burden by Ray Banks

My review of the fourth Callum Innes novel Beast of Burden by Ray Banks is up over at Bookspotcentral.

If you're not reading the Cal Innes shit, you are no shit missing out on the most original PI series running.

Beast of Burden just came out in UK so it probably won't get to the US for two whole fucking years or some bullshit, but you can still check out the great Saturday's Child and Sucker Punch.

Sucker Punch by Ray Banks

All right, you should know the drill by now, dear readers:

I did a review and it's up at Bookspotcentral.

For those of you too lazy to, you know, type in the words bookspotfuckingcentral (I wish it was spelled like that) and add a "dot com" to the end of said fucking phrase, you can just click right fucking HERE.

Don't say I never looked out for you.

SATURDAY'S CHILD by Ray Banks

Often when it comes to noir, I appreciate how sick the book is. I get swept up by how lurid the violence is, by how evil or tortured my protagonists are. I get dazzled by the nastiness, get excited by the sickness, am fueled by the whoa-shit!-ness of the book. That's really what brought me to noir in the first place. I liked to laugh along with bad guys. I liked my heroes un-heroic. I liked my plots brutal, my resolutions twisted or ambiguous. You know, all the stuff that amps up any ten-year-old.

But Saturday's Child is not a whoa-shit book. It does not have a totally fucked crazy plot. The bad guys don't behead someone then light a cigarette, walk toward the camera looking cool with flecks of blood on their two-thousand dollar suit showing in the harsh contrast lighting. It's not that type of book.

But it will make you say - probably about a dozen pages in - it will make you say, "Whoa shit!" but in a calm, clear voice.

Ray Banks is very similar to one of my favorite writers today, Sean Doolittle. Like Doolittle, Banks's book is real-life scale. Like Doolittle, the language is rock solid, simple yet undeniably perfect, precise. And above all, again like Doolittle, you are carried along not by the twisted plot but by the wonderful characters.

And fuck, Mo and Cal are quite the pair.

There are two first person narratives going on here at the same time. Over a few days we follow Callum Innes, low-rent P.I., and Mo Tiernan, son of legendary Manchester mob boss Morris Tiernan. It's easy to distinguish who is narrating chapter by chapter because Mo relates everything in a thick Manc accent, full of words like summat, nowt, owt, pringle, busy, and on and on (it gets easy to read really quick), while Cal's voice is more easily decipherable.

Big Morris has hired ex-con Cal to hunt down a dealer at one of his illegal gambling houses who has took off with some cash. Mo Tiernan, for reasons we don't find out until later, wants to find the dealer before Cal does. That's it. The stuff of classic noir. A P.I. and the guy trying to stop the P.I.

But what makes it so much more exciting is how human these guys are. Mo could have easily been the crazy motherfucker we've seen in countless novels - cutting off fingers on a whim, shooting people over nothing, etc. - but he is a crazy motherfucker that we could actually meet on the street. He is sociopathic and a right bastard, but not to the point that we don't believe him. He's a violent dick, not a serial killer.

Callum Innes is an ex-con with lots of worries. The cops are on his ass, he could be recalled to jail over any small misstep, his brother's cleaning up, and Morris Tiernan is not someone he can say no to under any circumstances. But he's not the tougher than tough guy we've come to expect in such P.I. novels. He's no Mike Hammer - hell, he doesn't even carry a gun. And he's certainly no great detective. His case is simple enough and the methods he employs relatable. There is no super-sleuthing going on in this book. He's just a guy with some troubles and a past. He doesn't want to do bad things, but he's human and forced into a shitty situation. And he's a bit of drunkard.

These two characters are so compelling, the plot so simple and organic (something you can hardly ever say for a P.I. book), the language so funny and exciting, that I couldn't tear myself away from Saturday's Child. Sick things happen, and there are fucked up moments, but on such a different, realistic level that make them resonate all the more. To really discuss what makes this such a different noir novel you have to discuss the last act of the book. It is just as exciting a conclusion as any noir novel, no doubt about it, but decidedly different. It is refreshing, original, ambiguous, and, well, believable.

If it's in the cards, I look forward to seeing more of Callum Innes and Mo Tiernan. If Callum Innes had his own series he would rival Jack Taylor for best P.I. out there. I need to read more of him, but Ray Banks is definitely someone I'll be looking out for. The right bastard is fuckin' cool as.