Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Joe Speaker, a junkie and barker at a San Francisco strip joint, finds a 69-carat blue diamond that involves him in a murder/blackmail deal and lands him in jail. ``Overall the novel and its sad look at prison life are marred by a highly derivative thriller plot, with characters . . . all tending to talk the same combination of hipster slang and B-movie cliches,'' said PW. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
When Joe Speaker, barker for a San Francisco strip joint, pulls off a caper inadvertently involving a precious diamond necklace, he incurs the wrath of porno king Baby Jewels and the interest of Detective Tarzon. Joe is sent to prison, where he breaks a drug habit and survives by his wits. Meanwhile, on the outside, Baby Jewels is maneuvering; Joe's girl friend is shacked up and pregnant; and various people are plotting, acting, and reacting. There is a dazzling vitality to this first novel. The language is raw; the characters are fresh and outrageous; the style is wicked and impudent. And in the dramatization of good versus evil (and the difficulty of sometimes telling the difference), the author succeeds in providing substance. Though not for readers looking for a standard thriller, this offbeat novel is outstanding and certain to be talked about. (Note: The title refers to prison slang for buddy. )-- Robert E. Donahugh, formerly with Youngstown & Mahoning Cty. P.L., Ohio (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
In this surprisingly slick debut, ex-con and former junkie Morgan effectively exploits his experience for a sprawling, realist fiction that's part crime novel and part social commentary on being down and out in America. And despite his undisguised delight in the sordid and depraved, his winning sense of humor and obvious street-smarts make for an entertaining, at times riveting, read. What begins as a guided tour through San Francisco's Tenderloin--with much tough talk about druggies, whores, pimps, perverts, and thieves--ends as a heroic portrait of a man with a conscience in an overwhelmingly unconscionable world. Far from perfect, Joe Speaker uses his gig as a strip-joint barker to cover for dealing drugs. Since most of his profits go up his arm, Joe supplements his income with an occasional heist, or by pimping his busty Tex-Mex squeeze, known on the runway as ""Kitty Litter."" When Joe's fellow hophead and homeboy, Rooski, bungles a robbery, killing a Chinese pharmacist in the process, Joe knows that, as partners in the crime, they're equally guilty of murder. Before Rooski spills his strung-out guts to the cops, Joe sets him up for some street justice. Burdened by guilt for his buddy's death, Joe begins his descent into hell. Events land him in the federal pen, with a number of people on his butt. At one end of the spectrum is Baby Jewels, 400 pounds of incarnate evil, a pimp and porn king with a penchant for ""dusting"" his used-up girls; he's also blackmailing a judge, but only Joe knows where the incriminating evidence is. With his psycho henchmen and his corrupt allies inside the system, the Fat Man comes close to icing Joe, and leaves lots of decapitated corpses in his wake, but Joe has a few guardian angels in and out of the big house: a troubled but honest ""supercop"" with some dark secrets of his own; a lifer and big shot in the Aryan Brotherhood; and the elderly con in charge of prison photography who, in Morgan's nonaccidental universe, turns out to be Joe's father. Panoramic in its view of sleaze, Morgan's gritty novel depends on numerous secondary characters--each perfectly etched in grime--and a plot that pulls together like a 19th-century novel, or a well-made movie, which this could easily become. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
