SAW RED
Duncan Sloan #2
By Bob Truluck
DESCRIPTION
Bob Truluck’s first novel, Street Level, won both the 1999 St. Martin’s Press/Private Eye Writers of America prize for Best First Private Eye Novel and the 2000 Shamus Award for Best First Novel from the Private Eye Writers of America, while introducing one slightly bad-ass, slightly slack and definitely way over-the-top Orlando PI, Duncan Sloan, to the reading public and aficionados of the genre.
Truluck’s second Sloan tale, Saw Red, roars out of the same Central Florida mire and milieu, wheels spitting out beautiful high-class prostitutes, Dixie Mob hitmen, mullet- and muddle-headed homeboy carjackers, really old Florida monied crackers, Italian gangsters fresh from the Jersey Shore, Elmer Gantry-style multimillionaire soul-packing con-artists, all mixed with a stunningly scrumptious and exotic high-dollar rent-a-cop who entwines herself with Sloan in his pursuit of an errant black Jag and the Palm Pilot full of names it once had as a passenger. Truluck spins his tale like the wheels on a commandeered Dodge Viper; pedal to the floor and to hell with casualties. You don’t often find work both as hard-boiled and finely hewn as Saw Red, shot through with some of the finest black-humor pixelating the stark Florida sunshine to boot: but you got lucky today, Dear Reader, when you picked up this eBook. Go ahead, open it up…and get ready to hang on for your dear, literary life! Viva Truluck!
REVIEWS
“Bob Truluck is a poet of the gutter, an astute chronicler of lowlife and hard knocks. Not for the faint of heart, but hey, then neither is life.” —John Connolly, author of the Charlie Parker series
“Bob Truluck writes with some kind of wicked magic I can’t even describe. His first novel was an absolute sucker punch of a book and this one hits even harder.” —Steve Hamilton, Edgar winning
“PI Duncan Sloan, who made his debut in Truluck’s Street Level (2000), explodes back into action in this rapid-fire, tough-guy whirlwind of an adventure set in Orlando, Fla. Terry Sebring, a high-priced hooker, comes to Sloan because her Jaguar was stolen-and in the car was her Palm Pilot with her client list. Now someone is trying to shake down some of her customers and she’s been followed and burgled. Naturally, the case isn’t as simple as it appears. The body count will rise before Sloan, a dangerous and appealing blend of cool and cunning, can figure out what role the punks who stole Terry’s car played and which of her clients (lawyer, accountant, mob guy, evangelist) has added blackmailer to his resume. Despite the up-to-date contemporary setting, Truluck’s style recalls that of Mickey Spillane in its straight-ahead, get-it-done fashion. The dialogue crackles with staccato sentences, flip wit, the ever-present tension of violence and sex. Readers can expect a nonstop thrill ride with a skilled driver at the wheel, and lots of collateral damage before the checkered flag. Duncan Sloan shouldn’t wait so long before his next appearance.” —Publishers Weekly