The Best Things In Life Are Free ... Books

Slide, the latest collaboration between Ken Bruen and Jason Starr, is published this week by Hard Case Crime, and to celebrate Crime Always Pays is diving head-first into a vat of Pimms. Before we slip into the Speedos, however, there’s the matter of the free copies being given away by Hard Case Crime, one of which could be yours if you just answer a simple question, to wit:

What is the name of the first Ken Bruen / Jason Starr collaboration?

To be in with a chance of winning a copy, just email us the answer at the address in the top right of this blog, with ‘Bruen / Starr competition’ in the subject line, before noon on September 25. Meanwhile, here’s a sample chapter to get you onto Slide’s slippery slope …

Baby, You’re A Starr

So much for the idea of the writer as an alienated misanthrope venting poisonous spleen on an indifferent world. Interviewed over at Things I’d Rather Be Doing, Sir Kenneth of Bruen reckons the process of co-writing with Jason Starr on the up-coming Slide (October 2) is pretty much jam at this stage, to wit:

“It was actually easier [than Bust] because we can now literally anticipate where the other is going to go, we have the same vision, dark sense of humour, it’s like writing with a psychic twin, though Jason might say … psycho! We never had one disagreement and mainly, we have great fun. We’re working on book three and falling over each other with ideas … but we’re totally in sync now, it’s uncanny how we’ve meshed our writing so completely.”

Which is nice. Next week: John Banville on how JD Salinger shared his Liquorice All-Sorts while co-authoring the ‘darkly allegorical’ Flopsy And Cottontail Go To The Mall II: This Time It’s Personal.

Sliding For Home

That rascally pair of rapscallious ragamuffins, Ken Bruen and Jason Starr, have the follow-up to their first collaboration, Bust, on the way in October courtesy of Hard Case Crime, but already the hup-ya big-ups having been coming in like the proverbial choppers at Da Nang. “A full-tilt, rocking homage to noir novels of the 1950s, taking full advantage of the neo-pulp Hard Case Crime imprint ... A seamless blend of Bruen’s dead-on Irish underworld and Starr’s hellish vision of the Big Apple, Hard Case’s latest release is smart, trashy fun, fulfilling ably the series’ irresistible promise,” says Publisher’s Weekly, while the Library Journal is on the case too, to wit: “Fasten your seat belts, and enjoy the bumpy ride of double- and triple-crosses, blackmail, and murder. If Quentin Tarantino is looking for another movie project, this novel with its mix of shocking violence and black comedy would be the perfect candidate.” For quite a bit more in the same vein, Slide on over here.

Bruen Up A Storm

It’s tough keeping up with everything Ken Bruen (right, with the uber-glam Tess Gerritsen, righter) is up to these days, people. Apart from publishing Cross this side of the pond and American Skin over yonder Stateside, he’s released A Fifth of Bruen through Busted Flush, a compilation of all his early novellas and short stories featuring an intro by Allan Guthrie. “A beautiful book ... a must-have for all Bruen’s fans,” says Jon Jordan of CrimeSpree Magazine over at Amazon, and he should know … Meanwhile, Bleak House have released These Guns For Hire, a hardboiled short story collection featuring Ken’s Punk, and you can hear him reading it over here somewhere-ish … and if that wasn’t enough, there’s his second collaboration with Jason Starr, Slide, which will be published by Hard Case Crime in October with the delicious tag-line, ‘Beauty is only sin deep’. Oi, Bruen – leave some room on the shelves for the rest of us, ya bum!