Friday, March 17, 2017

Bad Boy Boogie (Jay Desmarteaux) by Thomas Pluck

After 25 years in prison for killing the school bully Jay Desmarteaux is released from prison. When he comes back home he sets out to find his parents and get some revenge. Helped and endangered by the mob he has to deal with bad cops, his old love and his old friends and enemies while wielding his trusty Vietnam war hatchet.
It's clear Thomas loves Andrew Vachss and Richard Stark. There's a lot of Burke and Parker in the character in the cold and professional way he breaks into houses and takes out his enemies. It also has some of the direct but haunting prose of those greats. There's also a strong theme of sexual violence that reminded me of Vachss.
Don't expect a breezy Robert B. Parker kind of tale. There's a lot of darkness in here and Jay is probably a sociopath. There IS a lot of good characterization, a surprising amount of action scenes and nice tributest to rockband AC/DC, in fact the title of the chapters and of the book itself are lifted from AC/DC songs.
Brutal, dark and engaging. Worth your time.

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