Bad-ass crime fiction

Ungewöhnliche Bücher können auch mal einen ungewöhnlichen Auftritt haben. Weil uns der Schneid imponiert, mit dem Frank Nowatzki unbeirrt seinen Verlag Pulp Master macht, fahren wir anläßlich des Zwischen-allen-Stühlen-Buches „Der Vergewaltiger“ (The Rapist) von Les Edgerton ein Spalier von Kollegen auf, die diesen heftigen Noir in je ihrer Weise empfehlen. Angeführt wird die Springprozession von Guillermo O’Joyce, den es gerade aus den USA ins Exil nach Grenada verschlagen hat.

Les Edgerton, Jahrgang 1943, hat in jüngeren Jahren wegen Einbruchs, bewaffneten Raubüberfalls und versuchter Hehlerei zwei Jahre im berüchtigten Pendleton Reformatory abgesessen, aber nicht nur das verbindet ihn mit Eddie Bunker. Er ist ein Seelenverwandter von Charles Willeford, Jim Thompson. Eines seiner 18 Bücher ging über Bukowski und Henry Miller, zusätzlich gibt es von ihm Kurzgeschichten, eine gute Handvoll von ihnen war für renommierte Preise nominiert, dazu Essays und Drehbücher. In Deutschland wurde er bisher nicht verlegt.

Les Edgerton: Der Vergewaltiger (The Rapist, 2013). Aus dem Amerikanischen von Ango Laina und Angelika Müller. Nachwort von Ekkehard Knörer. PULP 40. Pulp Master, Berlin 2016. 160 Seiten, 12,80 Euro. Verlagsinformationen. Direkt bestellen ohne Versandkosten.

Sorry folks, all the following texts now are in English. Erst einmal noch Frank Nowatzki mit einem Zitat von der Internetseite seines Verlags. Der Text steht dort seit zehn Jahren, und trifft Tag für Tag immer noch genauso zu:

„Ich habe mich damit abgefunden, dass es von nun an wie in den Anfangstagen auf Sparflamme weitergehen muss und dass ich nicht allen eingesandten Manuskripten gerecht werden, geschweige denn alle E-Mails beantworten kann, da ich noch einen anderen Job habe und eine Familie ernähren muss.
Ich habe mich damit abgefunden, dass einfach keine Mittel über die Buchproduktion hinaus vorhanden sind, um das Ganze mit modernem Marketing zu promoten. Ich vertraue weiter darauf, dass die Bücher die richtigen tausend bis zweitausend Leute finden, so wie sie einst mich gefunden haben. Leute mit dem gewissen Blick, die sich nicht von irgendeiner Marketingstrategie einlullen lassen oder ihren Geschmack einem Warenwirtschaftssystem überantworten, für das hoch dotierte Manager verantwortlich zeichnen. Alles in dem Irrglauben, so etwas wäre freie Auswahl.“

Review of The Rapist

Reviewer: Guillermo O’Joyce

Henry Miller once wrote, “If any man dared translate all that is in his heart, to put down what is really his experience, what is truly his truth, I think then the world would to go smash, no accident, no will could ever again assemble the pieces, the atoms, the indestructible elements that have gone to make up the world.”

Such a man has emerged. His name is Les Edgerton. The vehicle for his assault is a fictional character named Truman Pinter, the book has the title The Rapist. The reverberations of his words are so violent and encompassing, the reader becomes as taut and nerve-wracked as the teller of the story after ten pages.

That is because the reader is directly incriminated as the villain. The reader is left no room to stand. He is cornered with the falsification of his own life. Like Truman, a condemned man awaiting execution for the supposed crimes of rape and murder, the reader is condemned and pinned against the cell bars of unflinching prose. The charges are reversed: by the end of 140 pages the reader is pronounced Guilty of Capitulation.

Let Truman speak: “He (Defiler of Truth) lacks a center—each of you is his center—and he has sucked the marrow dry of each of those he has visited.”

These are the words Truman has held back for 44 years. Now that he is condemned, he is free to fire away. Edgerton’s hope is that a few humans who are not legally condemned but feel trapped by his words will begin to speak from their conscience. Right now the world is devoid of conscience and consciousness. The timing for such a book is perfect.

Truman’s real crime is that he has remained separate. He has inherited money and doesn’t have to work. Until he meets the town trollop, he is a virgin. It is this separateness that gets him labeled and condemned to die. Humans have a great fear of The Loner, The Outsider. They fear he may know something they don’t. Therefore, they must kill him. Richard Wright’s Native Son was originally entitled The Outsider. Native Son is one of the few books that can match The Rapist for sustained tension. But just as Wright’s voice is labeled “Black Protest”, The Rapist is under lock and key as a “crime novel”. You can’t sell anything on this Earth unless it is grouped under a fashionable label. And we wonder why there is murder all around us????

There is no self-righteousness to Truman Pinter. Just before his execution he realizes that this detachment which he thinks gives him freedom, has paradoxically made him a slave. He says, “Those who cared did something about the situation they disliked. I had simply let things happen and taken the consequences, good or bad. Therefore, I relinquished control and in doing so gave up any claim to freedom.” He is as unsparing with his own life as he is with the props of western civilization.

Yet, Truman is not to be dismissed as a misguided rebel. A prison guard says about him, “I think that you’re some kind of genius that doesn’t belong anywhere.” About this pronouncement, Truman remarks, “In his straightforward way, he had cut through the subterfuge and claptrap and identified the truth.”

Now the word “genius” is as overused as the phrase “cutting edge.” The dictionary says, “one who is exceptionally intelligent or creative,” a sure sign the experts of language are just as lost as prison wardens. When it comes to people who combine great talent, faith in their intuition, discipline, and courage to chart their own direction, the arbiters of culture have no idea what to do with them. They don’t fit any previous pattern; their works resist labeling; their lives seem a mess; they are difficult to deal with. They are simply on another wave length.

This is true of Edgerton and his creation, Truman. Yet, Truman spirals off and becomes much more than a mouthpiece; he becomes an independent voice, one that will haunt the sleep of readers with the guts to hear him out.

In designing Truman, Edgerton had the wisdom to make him completely unattractive. He fits none of the formulas for an engaging human being. His personality has no color. He doesn’t play the fiddle nor show any interest in being an artist. He espouses no causes, political nor religious. He is pompous, conceited, and a bit of a boor in the first 12 pages. Until he is sentenced, he is without conviction.

However, Truman is not a complete blank. He was nursed in a rocking chair until he was 6. His father left when he was 5. He does have a degree from Princeton, a fact which only gets him in trouble with the warden, also a Princeton graduate. The warden cannot fathom a condemned man who hasn’t been underprivileged. Until the run-in with the town trollop, he’s done little but fish, observe, and read. Yet, books have meant little to him. Oh, he’s done one other thing, he’s masturbated. Often. He’s dribbled away the constant tension he feels between himself and the rest of the race.

What Truman can do is see and hear clearly and then express himself from his conscience. In a marvelous bit of discipline on Edgerton’s part, he doesn’t allow Truman to indulge in any rhetoric of castigation. Truman simply addresses his situation, as it arises, in brief one and two paragraph responses and it is all like a hidden song from the core of the earth. It is a reminder of Edgerton’s one relative, Arthur Rimbaud, who wrote in 1872, “I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.”

As an example of the reverberations of Truman I will cite one: beans. Beans are fed to prisoners because they are the cheapest of all foodstuffs. Says Truman, “The warden has an allowance for our food and if he can save money from his allotted budget, he’s allowed to keep the savings for himself.” To add to the fun, merchants put gravel in the beans to up the weight and collect more money. Truman bites down on a bean and busts a molar. His entire story is told with a toothache.

Parochial enough, you say. Yet is there a single product we can buy that hasn’t been tampered with? That hasn’t been shot full of hormones, laced with pesticides, left to the vagaries of some cantankerous machine, the negligence of some bitter foreman? Defects on new cars kill almost as many people as the Diaper Heads do yet not a single CEO has ever been put on trial. Still, no student is allowed in a college classroom without his assurance that he will be a good consumer.

This then is a book of revolt.

The need to revolt is implicit in every line.

That’s what gives The Rapist its superhuman tension.

If books could be measured by what they provoke, this book of Edgerton’s would top the list. It’s going to enrage people because they’re going to realize the hypocrisy by which they gained their food and shelter was nothing more than honoring a host of killing machines which absolutely denied the existence of the spirit of creation.

Now we are back to the Son of Moloch which begins The Rapist—“He lies down with all members of the congregation equally.” Most adults will try to block out its message; they’re not going to relinquish 30 or 40 years of gaining a precarious foothold within a teetering civilization. Better to be a zombie with something to eat than a gaping worm behind a bush, pleading for a bowl of beans.

But there’s one group that’s going to take The Rapist to heart precisely because they haven’t been indoctrinated by the realities. That’s 15-year-olds across the U.S., Europe, and Japan. They’ve experienced enough of the killing machines to doubt their legitimacy. They quite rightly suspect that they’re soon going to end up in a uniform, holding a rifle, and dropped on their pubescent heads from an airplane into a country whose name they can’t pronounce. They are largely male and owing to another war that goes untalked about, they can’t get laid. They’re going to glance at Truman’s persistent whacking away and declare, “Not me!”

Then watch out! All that pubescent energy backed up, searching for an object for their wrath. That they will find their way to The Rapist is problematic unless some bitter but adventurous philanthropist buys up copies and passes them out on the street advancing on a schoolyard.

Unlikely, you say. Hah! No more unlikely than the miracle of The Rapist whose knife-edge I lay in your hands now.

— Guillermo O’Joyce, Author, Don’t Do It Standing Up, Recorder of Births and Deaths: Stories, First Born of an Ass, For Women who Moan, Listen, America, You Don’t Even Own Your Name.
His blog.
Les Edgerton’s blog, seine Webseite.

Les Edgerton at his desk.

 BLURBS FOR THE RAPIST

1. Les Edgerton presents an utterly convincing anti-hero. The abnormal psychology is pitch-perfect. The Rapist ranks right up there with Camus‘ The Stranger and Simenon’s Dirty Snow. An instant modern classic.

Allan Guthrie, author of Slammer and others. Publisher, Blasted Heath Books

2. So, I’m reading Les Edgerton’s The Rapist. The title has already made me uneasy.
   Five pages in and I can hardly breathe.
   Ten and I’m nauseous.
   For the next 50, I’m a mixture of all of the above, but most of all, angry.I feel like ringing my feminist friends and confessing: Sisters, I’m reading something you will kill me for reading.
   I feel like ringing my ex colleagues – parole officers and psychologists who work with sex offenders in Barlinnie Prison, Glasgow – and asking them if they think it’s helpful to publish an honest and explicit transcript which shows the cognitive distortions of a callous, grandiose, articulate sex offender; one which illustrates his inability to have a relationship with a woman and his complete lack of empathy?I’m thinking I don’t know what I should be thinking.
   Will it turn sex offenders on?
   Should we listen to this guy?
   Is it possible to separate the person from the offence, and to empathise with him as he waits to die?I don’t ring anyone.
   I read on.And the breathlessness, nausea, anger and confusion increase all the way to the end, at which point all I know is that the book is genius.

Helen Fitzgerald, author, Dead Lovely, Bloody Women, The Devil’s Staircase, Donor and others.

3. Take a Nabokovian narrator trying to convince the reader of his innocence and filter it through An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and you’ve got The Rapist, a raw and frightening journey through the inner psyche of a damaged man.

Brian Lindenmuth, Publisher, Spinetingler Magazine and Snubnose Press.

4. One never knows what to expect when reading a novel entitled “The Rapist,” yet, similar to “The Bitch” which precedes this, with Les Edgerton you know you’re in for an interesting ride. Tackling a tough subject with great aplomb, Les Edgerton proves once again why he is one of the most exciting writers of this generation. The structure of this just astounded me. I’ve never read anything like it before. I’ve never been so engrossed in a novel as I was with this one. I had no idea Edgerton had this literary part of his writing. I don’t know of any other writers that can go from crime fiction to literary so seamlessly. Edgerton should be very proud of this novel…
   One of the bravest pieces of fiction you are likely to read this year, and also one of the best. This is a novel you’ll want to read again and again, an outstanding read!

Luca Veste, author of the story collections Liverpool 5, and More Liverpool Five. He is also the editor of the story collection, Off the Record.

5. The Rapist blends Camus and Jim Thompson in an existential crime novel that is as dark and intoxicating as strong Irish coffee. Les Edgerton pulls us into the corkscrew mind of Truman Ferris Pinter, a twisted man with skewed perception of the world, as his life spirals toward oblivion, like dirty dishwater down a plughole. It reminded me of Jim Thompson’s Savage Night in its delirium.

Paul D Brazill, Author, 13 Shots Of Noir and others.

6. Les Edgerton’s book The Rapist is Albert Camus’ The Stranger retold as if by the lovechild of Edgar Allen Poe and Charles Bukowski. Yes, it’s disturbing, yet layered and provocative, with its combination of mysticism and perversion. I particularly like the cat and mouse relationship between the protagonist Truman and the prison warden—it’s reminiscent of The Shawshank Redemption. This tale, with its many twists and turns, is definitely not for the faint of heart—but then, the title should have made that clear.

Scott Evans, Editor, Blue Moon Literary and Art Review, Author, First Folio.

7. William Faulkner on steroids or Hannibal Lecter on meth; neither as literate or frightening as Les Edgerton in his ground-breaking novel, The Rapist. This intellectual tour-de-force rips open the mind of a delusional psychopath taking the reader on a raw journey that challenges Dante’s Inferno. And the last line of the book is the penultimate example of a sociopath’s naked ego.

Bob Stewart, author of Alias Thomas A Katt, Hidden Evil, No Remorse, Revenge Redeemed and others.

8. A deathdream swan dive from the existential stratosphere plummeting into the personal hell of a tormented, broken psyche, The Rapist introduces us to a gentle and philosophical misanthrope named Truman Pinter, at once reminiscent of Albert Camus and Patricia Highsmith, even John Gardner’s Grendel and the journal of Carl Panzram. Les Edgerton melds introspection and visceral, human brutality in this death row narrative from a masterful storyteller, whose dissection of a psychopath will haunt you long after the final page.

Thomas Pluck, Well-known commentator on the noir scene, many short stories published in magazines such as the Utne Reader, editor of the anthology Lost Children Protectors.

9. The Rapist is a disturbing look into the twisted mind of a narcissistic psychopath on death row. A vulgar odyssey reminiscent of Nabokov’s Lolita, although far more depraved, Les Edgerton has crafted a dark and brilliant story that leaves you as equally unsettled as it does in complete awe.

Julia Madeleine, author of No One To Hear You Scream and The Truth About Scarlet Rose.

10. When Les Edgerton asked me to read an ARC of “The Rapist” he warned me with that title it may not be my thing and he was okay with whatever I decided. I knew of his writing books like Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One & Never Lets Them Go and Finding Your Voice: How to Put Personality in Your Writing but never had looked at any of his fiction. I was prepared for something graphic but he refused to talk about the plot or storyline. No hints.I was ready to be offended. I’m a strong advocate for women’s equality and won’t tolerate or put my name near anything that belittles woman.  With a title of “The Rapist” it had two and a half strikes before I read the first line because rape is all about a man having power over a woman. From the first pages the words and voice made me think of American literature masters like Mark Twain and Edgar Allen Poe I was forced to read in high school. The difference was in school I still muttered about reading dead masters and times, but grew to love the descriptions, plots and characters that transported me to another moment in history. In “The Rapist” I read greedily to see where the book was going, totally engrossed in the story. The honesty and freshness of the words from the main character kept me glued to the page to see what happened to the man caught in the worst circumstances and an act of degradation to woman. That is about all I want to say about the plot. I understand Les’s reasons for not explaining the details. You need fresh eyes to appreciate it but that isn’t to say I won’t go back and reread it like other writing masters savoring it. It is one of those books that each time you read it, you find another kernel of truth, a pearl of wisdom. It has that many facets wrapped in rich layers of dialogue, characterization and setting that pounded with each of the rapist’s heartbeat. I was hooked from the first page.

Wendy Gager, author of A Case of Infatuation, A Case of Accidental Intersection, and A Case of Hometown Blues.

11. Les Edgerton’s masterly The Rapist is a deeply disturbing journey into the murky recesses of the mind of psychopathic death row inmate Truman Ferris Pinter. An intellectual, erudite, philosophical misanthrope, Truman draws the reader inexorably into his fractured web. There are times when one nods one’s head in agreement with his well-reasoned arguments, only to shrink back in horror at the realisation. Sympathy for The Devil, indeed, in this dark vision of a black heart that is both astoundingly honest and ultimately terrifying.

Lesley Ann Sharrock former publisher/editor Moondance Media (UK), author of 7th Magpie. Also, author of Truth Lies Buried (under the name Lesley Welsh).

12. Les Edgerton is the king of hard-edged, bad-ass crime fiction, and The Rapist is his most harrowing book yet.

Scott Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest, The Walkaway, Cottonwood.

13. Like Denis Johnson’s classic novel-in-stories, Jesus’ Son, Les Edgerton’s The Rapist is a dark, risky, disturbing story that grabs the reader in a haunting fashion and holds on tightly. The writing is taut and unsettling. Edgerton is a mighty talent.

Tony Ardizzone, The Whale Chaser and others.

14. ‘I live in a small, dark realm which I fill out’. Jean Genet’s words in “Miracle Of the Rose”. And like Genet, Edgerton writes with lyricism and a sense of history of things that disturb, balancing through his superb style themes that may otherwise unsettle the narrative. Edgerton’s brilliant archaeological dig into the motivations of a rapist is an unflinching look at the darker recesses of the human psyche. There is nothing gratuitous here and it takes a command to achieve a narrative pull in such territory. It reminded me of John Burnside’s “The Locust Room” but it’s better written. Edgerton voices the demonic forces at work within his narrator’s head. He embeds the story with the protagonist’s need for redemption set against the backdrop of his life. „The Rapist“ is confessional, poetic, unrelenting, and as real as the newspaper lying before you. It challenges the assumption that fictions need to censor the things people read every day in what is deemed factual. It is told in a style that situates it among the classics of transgressive fictions.

Richard Godwin, Apostle Rising, Mr Glamour.

15. Les Edgerton’s THE RAPIST is for those brave enough to acknowledge the ugly reality produced by our illusions. It’s unapologetic, tough, taut, and well-written. It’s also stark and metaphysical. It poses hard questions and makes you look hard for answers. This is great, challenging literature.

Lee Thompson, author of When We Join Jesus in Hell.

16. Les Edgerton has written, in The Rapist, something that . . . that . . . well, defies explanation. Don’t get me wrong; the writing is extremely powerful. The imagery is wonderful and startlingly clear. The emotions are vivid and visceral. Emotions that grab you physically and rattle your teeth violently the further you dip into his tale. But the question is . . . how do you define it?Nihilistic existentialism comes to mind as a basis for understanding. The realization that nothing . . . nothing . . . is real or meaningful. But somehow the definition falls flat. There is, ultimately, a purpose for what happens to the character. Better yet; there is a deep, almost Freudian, mystery that grabs you and makes your imagination soar with the possibilities in understanding what is happening.I wouldn’t say that, after you finishing reading The Rapist, you’re going to have a feeling of satisfaction. In fact I strongly suggest you’re going to feel as if you’ve just walked out of a House of Mirrors. You certainly will be confused, shocked, and puzzled.But you will realize that you’ve just read something amazingly original. Truly, magnificently, original.

B.R. Stateham, author of A Taste of Old Revenge, Tough Guys: The Homicide Cases of Turner Hahn and Frank Morales ,and others.

17. Meet Truman Ferris Pinter, condemned prisoner #49028, a snarling, wicked, silver-tongued misanthrope – a black hole of a man who sucks you in with the human gravity of his self-deception, then distorts your beliefs with the super-logic of his epiphanies. Oh, it’s all there – gut-grabbing lust, sex, hate and violence, deeply disturbing comments about our insane world – but The Rapist by Les Edgerton is much more than a new classic of Modern Noir. Against all odds, master wordsmith Edgerton has created the most mesmerizing and disturbing narrator since Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley, an intense, strange, well-spoken villain whose story and sexual perceptions will frighten many more men than women. The Rapist is not who — or what — you think.

Jack Getze, Fiction Editor, Spinetingler Magazine.

18. Logic and reason mean everything to Truman Ferris Pinter. They trump all. Convicted of rape and more, Pinter faces a sentence he isn’t the least bit concerned about, because he has planned the perfect escape.In THE RAPIST, author Les Edgerton has penned potentially a career-defining work, challenging societal notions of right and wrong, crime and punishment, religion and philosophy, and wrapping the whole thing up in a taut, breathtaking, utterly absorbing account of narcissim, self-absorption and unchecked ego.Edgerton is one of those rare writers who tackles the most difficult subjects unflinchingly, and does so in a way that leaves the reader spellbound. Whatever you think THE RAPIST is about, you’re wrong. Read it and see. You’ll find yourself thinking about it long after you’ve finished.

Allan Leverone, author of The Lonely Mile and others.

19. A unique, riveting look into the mind of a very disturbed character. Tough to read, but tougher to put down. Only a writer with Les Edgerton’s skill could pull this off.

 Terrence P. McCauley, Author of Prohibition and Fight Card: Against the Ropes.

20. When I was given the opportunity to read Les Edgerton’s forthcoming novella, I already had in mind something of what I might experience. Having read JUST LIKE THAT and THE BITCH, I knew THE RAPIST would be uncompromising, and brilliantly written. And it is. Truth be told, however, the central character in THE RAPIST – Truman Pinter – is as far away from any protagonist Les Edgerton has ever written. Indeed, apart from being uncompromising and brilliantly written, you’d be hard pressed to guess this is a Les Edgerton book at all.
    For instance, here is the opening:
    Let me tell you who occupies this prison cell. Perfidious, his name is Perfidity. His name is: Liar, Blasphemer, Defiler of Truth, Black-Tongued. He lies down with all members of the congregation equally, tells them each in turn they are his beloved, while he is already attending to the next assignation, in his relentless rendezvous with the consumption of souls. THE RAPIST is a book in three acts, beginning with Truman sitting in a prison cell, accused of rape, awaiting execution. Truman speaks with such precision and clarity, such perfect prose, the reader is immediately faced with the conflict of how this weaver of words could commit such a brutal act. The seductive nature of the words is incredible. But that is only half the story. The seduction is purely intellectual. It speaks purely to the mind. Truman seems a character almost totally bereft of any sort of empathy or compassion. Never before have I read such coldness. Hannibal Lector doesn’t even come close. Truman Pinter is truly terrifying.Truman tells us of his crime, his justification for the act, his plan to thwart the authorities at the final moment. He is very difficult to like.
    But then comes the second act. We learn of Truman’s childhood. We learn of how his pathology manifested. We learn of the boy he once was. What is so brilliant about this is that as Truman tells us of his mother and his father, and of his childhood, he is barely aware how vulnerable he is becoming. It is so very, very touching.The third act spins everything on its head, and concludes with a twist that is sublime beyond words.A writer who writes a book THE RAPIST is a writer that holds no fear. That is clear from the outset. It alerts the reader to the fact this will be a challenging read–and it is. A challenge for the reader to trust the writer. Unreservedly. Trust the writer will keep them safe.In Les Edgerton, you are in the safest of hands.THE RAPIST is bleak and touching, challenging and inspirational.
    An astounding read.

Ian Ayris, author of Abide With Me and One Day in the Life of Jason Dean.

21. I just finished The Rapist and . . . um . . . wow. . . just . . . I mean, holy . . . what a voice. What a . . .I mean, it’s so . . . wow. Damn. Seriously.

Eric Beetner, author of The Devil Doesn’t Want Me.

22. One page into Les Edgerton’s The Rapist and I whispered, “Damn.” Not just the kind of “damn” you utter in respect for the audacity of what you’ve uncovered, but also that “damn” that means, “Why the hell didn’t I think of that?” You didn’t think of that because you haven’t lived it. The ring of ironbound authenticity is consistent throughout Edgerton’s career, and The Rapist is no exception. Not just the blunt realities of incarceration, of course, but the mileage on his narrators. But this is a different voice than we’re used to, a different kind of hunger. What’s new here is the abandon. This is the kind of work you get from a writer with nothing left to lose, not one with nothing left to prove, and that’s the biggest surprise of all.David James Keaton, author of Fish Bites Cop!

23. Les Edgerton is the reincarnation of our beloved Eddie Bunker. The writing is as tough and tender as Bunker with that wonderful sense of dry humour that underpins even the most violent of scenes. This guy can write and like a focused Bukowski. Make no mistake, here is the real deal. The books (The Rapist and The Bitch) cry out for movie deals.Les Edgerton is the new High King of Noir.

Ken Bruen

24. Les Edgerton has swiftly become my favorite crime writer. Original voice, uncompromising attitude and a pure hardboiled style leap him to the front ranks of my reading list. He will become legendary.

Joe Lansdale, author of Paradise Sky, The Bottoms, Edge of Dark Water, the Hap and Leonard series, the books behind the TV series of the same name, and many others.