The Max

The Max is another offering from Hard Case Crime written by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr, two award winning novelists in the crime fiction genre. The titular character is a man by the name of Max Fisher. He is a short, fat, middle aged man with delusions of grandeur. In the previous novel, Max and his mistress, a woman named Angela, knocked off his wife using a former IRA hired killer. Max then set up shop as a drug dealer—a horribly deluded, inept drug dealer, but a drug dealer nonetheless. He was arrested and convicted for his deeds and sent to Attica. Angela, for her part, fled to Greece where she laid low by partying, boozing, and sexing it up with locals and other vacationers.

In the story Angela runs into a spot of trouble (killing a man who raped her) in Greece, so she hot-foots it back to the States. Max, through sheer dumb luck, becomes a big shot in the joint (through the spread of the erroneous rumor that he once cut off a man's most prized possession). The prisoners stage a riot, and during that time, Max and his cell mate make an escape. Angela, back in the states by this time, aids them. However, they run into trouble when she is tracked down by the cousin of the man she killed and an English grifter who looks amazingly similar to British author Lee Child. The story ends with every single character dying except for Max and the Lee Child look alike.

The style of the story is simply amazing. The tone is completely tongue-in-cheek, totally satiric. All of the characters are deluded with their own self-importance, and the authors convey their attitudes with precise and amusing effect. It’s most definitely dark humor, but it’s still hilarious. The authors aren’t especially spectacular in their plot-crafting abilities or even their diction, but the tone they have down pat for sure.

The book was a good read, but honestly, it probably isn’t for most people. The characters are just too amoral to appeal to the casual readers. It’s not like it wasn’t a good read, though. You just have to be in the right mindset when you read it—that, and go into it without expecting too much. ( )

Ken Bruen and Jason Starr are remarkable authors individually and their combined talents are a real treat. The Max is the third book in the Max Fischer/Angela Petrakos series and it is as darkly humorous as Bust and Slide. Is noir humor a category of crime fiction? If not it should be. The Max picks up where Slide left off. Max Fischer has been convicted of drug trafficking and is on his way to Attica and Angela has fled to Greece only to find herself in jail on the island of Lesbos. Max's deluded perception of himself as a drug kingpin is even more inflated and, against all odds, he thrives in prison. wherever Max goes, chaos and violence follow.

This is a wonderfully dark, humorous, and often violent novel and characters without any redeeming value to society and I love them. I'm not sure how long Starr and Bruen can keep it up but I hope that there will be a next installment. The Max knows no limits.

Don't start this series with The Max. You need to see the growth (or is it fall) of Max Fischer from the beginning. ( )