There’s only one word for Gary Phillips’
The Jook and that word is
fucking
cool (you had to believe the Nerd would spice up said word
with some Grade-A poop-mouth, am I right?). This fucking beast is just oozing
with cool. I haven’t read any other shit from Gary Phillips yet, but if his
other books are half as cool as
The Jook, you can bet the fucking farm
the Nerd’s gonna be on top of that shit toot-sweet.
The Jook tells the story of Zelmont Raines, a Super Bowl-winning
wide receiver that’s fallen on hard times. He’s just been sent home to
L.A. after getting the
boot from the European leagues following his hip getting out of whack for the
umpteenth time. Dude’s got bills and no money to pay them with, what with
blowing all his NFL coin on drugs, alimony and lawyers (He swears she said she
was legal). But
Los Angeles
is getting a new franchise called the Barons and nobody - not even the devoutly
Christian NFL commissioner that hates the shit out of him - can stop Zelmont
from trying out.
Surely he can make the team and start living the high life once again,
fucked up hip or no.
But then a pretty little thing working for the owner of the Barons named
Wilma Wells starts whispering in ol’ Zelmont’s ear, saying that there’s an
easier way to gain the green. Namely, by ripping off some mobbed up NFL big
wigs for cool millions…
So you have this classic femme fatale noir story with the neat twist of the
main character being an ex-bad boy (well, not so “ex-“ I suppose) football
player. That’s enough for me to recc this shit right there, but Phillips also
loads this motherfucker up with tons of crazy sex scenes and gloriously
violent, cinematic action sequences. Then there’s the fucking nutso heist shit
towards the end and…
So yeah, you could say the Nerd dug this shit.
But what really makes it all work is Zelmont Raines himself. He’s telling
his own story in a voice that is
tres fucking cool, every other line
dripping with distilled badassery. Zelmont’s a cocky motherfucker with flaws
out the ass, but he’s so fucking enviably awesome (only a God like Jim Brown or
Fred Williamson in the seventies could truly do him justice on the big screen)
that you’re totally with him to the bitter end.
Like a double of Maker’s on the rocks,
The Jook goes down easy then
rocks your shit something fierce right afterward. It’s straight up hot sex,
blazing action, and classic noir told in a bracingly modern, unabashedly cool
way (I wish there were more words capable of expressing “cool”-ness, but there
just fucking
isn’t, dear reader).
So trust the Nerd, dear reader: your ass wants some of this shit right here.
Your ass wants it in the right fucking
now.
My interview with Gary Phillips where we talk the new anthology Scoundrels: Tales of Greed, Murder and Financial Crimes is up at the crime factory blog.
My review of Cowboys, the latest Vertigo Crime graphic, is up at spinetingler.
