One wonders if in writing SLIDE, coauthors Ken Bruen and Jason Starr had set out to pen a novel with zero boring parts. Because that’s what it reads like, and that’s what it is. This crime number pulls the cord on page 1 and takes off whether you’re ready or not. “Can you keep up?” it laughs in your face, as it spits in it.

A sequel to last year’s BUST, this rollicking tale of sex, drugs and serial killers begins when disgraced New York computer exec Max Fisher wakes up in Alabama, not remembering anything from the last couple of days. Desperate times call for desperate measures, leading Max to befriend Kyle, the farmboy motel employee who fancies smoking crack every now and then. With promise of a threesome with big-boobed whores, Max wins Kyle over as his right-hand man.

Succumbing to the lure of the pipe and the straw, Max – or The M.A.X., as he christens himself – transforms himself into a drug dealer, schooled by endless viewings of SCARFACE and BOYZ N THE HOOD. He’s high all the time, speaks in Ebonics and even has a sex slave at his beck and call: a black, E-cup stripper named Felicia. Max has designs on a huge drug deal with the Colombians, but Felicia has plans to fuck that up with the help of her obese cousin Sha-Sha.

Speaking of large breasts, SLIDE also tells the story of Angela, a no-good Irish woman who hooks up with a serial killer – whom she initially mistakes for U2’s Bono – because she’s in need of cash and rather easy when it comes to below-the-belt access. This murderous boyfriend of hers is named Slide, and he’s out to break the world record for homicide. Eager for a taste of celebrity, he even has his own cinema-ready catchphrase which he utters to his victims: “Was gonna let it slide.”

Max and Angela were the catalysts behind BUST, so it’s only a matter of time before they meet again in SLIDE. And when they do, readers, watch your balls.

Haven’t read BUST? No problem. I didn’t remember a single scene from it – not that it wasn’t great, because it was – and SLIDE doesn’t require you to. Its pleasures are instant and infinite. The back cover of this Hard Case Crime original warns, “This may be the most shocking book you ever read!” That’s not quite true, but it’s definitely not a member of the politically correct camp. Witness Max’s assessment of Kyle’s naive loyalty: “If Max had told him to go up to Harlem and stand in front of the Magic Johnson movie theater wearing a FUCK YOU, NIGGERS T-shirt, the stupid moron would’ve done it.”

Like those miscreants who populate Elmore Leonard novels, SLIDE’s characters are the slimiest of the slime, yet somehow an utter joy to follow. However, this wouldn’t be the case if Bruen and Starr’s lines weren’t constantly hilarious. One memorable passage has Felicia sizing up Max’s breast fetish: “When she was doing a dance he didn’t look at nothing else but her titties. It was like that was all she was – two titties, and it was like her nipples were made of metal and there were little round magnets in his eyeballs.” Go-for-broke prose like that comes three or four times per page.

For a crude, rude and tastefully tasteless trip with society’s underbelly, SLIDE is the ride of the season. –Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• BUST by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr