"You know what? The bastard blows me out of the water. This guy writes Maine like Ardai writes New York. If you're not reading him, you don't know what you're missing." --Chris F. Holm, author of "The Collector" series, The Killing Kind, and Red Right Hand.

"A refreshingly new voice in noir." --Ed Kurtz, author of Nothing You Can Do and The Rib From Which I Remake the World.

"A glorious boilermaker of noir and East Coast gothic. The action is taut as a sprung snare and Bagley tightens the screws with every page." -- Laird Barron, author of Swift to Chase and Blood Standard.




Sunday, February 1, 2009

Deep Thoughts from Tough Guys: The You're in Jock Country Now, Aye Edition


“I told you I thought I could see the answer. You don’t want to give these cunts what they were after. Or turn them into the police. No, I see what you want. You want to fuck them up. Show them who the real hard man is. And you can dress it up however you like, because you like to pretend you’re the hero. Makes you feel better, right? But in the end, it comes down to one simple thing: you’re spoiling for a fight.”

—David Burns to J. McNee in The Good Son, ©2008 by Russel D. McLean


4 comments:

Patrick Shawn Bagley said...

Kieran,

I've been a fan of his short stories for a while now, but hadn't read THE GOOD SON until Steven Torres sent me a copy. It's sure to end up on my "best reads of '09" list come December.

BTW, I thought of you the other day when there was an ad for Big G's on the Bangor TV station.

Russel said...

Kieran

Fuckin' A... hope you've been gaving a grand time since last I saw you in B'More.

Patrick

Absolutely brilliant that you enjoyed this one. And even better you chose to immortalise Burns - who is a blast to write. Good to see an American perspective, too, given Thomas Dunne'll be putting this sucker out there later on this year. And even if something trumps it on the list (a long way to go yet and what look like some killer books coming this year: Tony Black's latest just blew me away) that the thought was there to put it on brings a smile to my face.

Cheers,

Russel

Patrick Shawn Bagley said...

Glad to hear that THE GOOD SON is coming out over here. It deserves a wide audience.

There's an ARC of Tony's latest sitting on my desk. I plan to spend this Sunday doing nothing but being GUTTED.

Russel said...

Yup, after THE GOOD SON, comes LOST SISTER which I'm working on edits for at the moment. Thomas Dunne have that one, too.

GUTTED is brilliant - - Tony Black is shaping up to be the real deal, as far as I am concerned: GUTTED confirms that big time.