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Product Description
Product Description
5 [IMPORTANT / VALUABLE] LESSONS YOU CAN LEARN BY READING BUST:
1) When you hire someone to kill your wife, don’t hire a psychopath.
2) Don’t use Drano to get rid of a dead body.
3) Those locks on hotel room doors? Not very secure.
4) A curly blond wig isn’t much of a disguise.
5) Secrets can kill.
1) When you hire someone to kill your wife, don’t hire a psychopath.
2) Don’t use Drano to get rid of a dead body.
3) Those locks on hotel room doors? Not very secure.
4) A curly blond wig isn’t much of a disguise.
5) Secrets can kill.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I bought BUST on the strength of it being published by the fantastic HARD CASE CRIME. I was hugely impressed: a black coffee dark comedy involving exceptionally well realised characters. The narrative is delivered from the changing perspectives of the leading charcaters and is beautifully done. I must admit to laughing throughout at increasingly terrible actions and selfishness of the charcaters and in particular having a sneaking liking for the awful Max Fisher who is the first character introduced in the book. Great stuff - made me go out and buy up books by Starr and Bruen on the strength of it.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
25 reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Memo to self: don't hire psychopathic hit-man
7 July 2006
Format:Mass Market Paperback
The CEO of NetWorld, Max Fisher, wants his wife dead. He's decided that he's ready to marry his girlfriend Angela -- a fiery Greek-Irish executive assistant with amazing new components -- and start over. Divorce is not an option, what with half of his formidable assets on the line.
So Max agrees to meet Angela's cousin's buddy, a hit-man named Popeye. What Max doesn't know is that Popeye is actually Angela's real boyfriend. He's a psychopathic Irish "proveen" -- a small-time enforcer for the "Ra" (IRA), who are smart enough to keep him at arm's length. Predictably, given this cast of characters, the hit goes down, plenty of things go awry, and things start to spin out of control.
Compounding matters is a hood named Bobby Rosa, now confined to a wheelchair, who makes his living blackmailing couples engaged in compromising relationships. Through sheer coincidence, Rosa happens to snap some shots of Max and Angela "celebrating" his wife's departure. Once Rosa confronts Fisher -- who is already under heavy police scrutiny -- with the photos, the plot swings in a rush of completely unpredictable turns.
You'll be hard-pressed to tell where Bruen's work ends and Starr's begins. The story is seamless and pulse-pounding. The characterizations are deep; you'll feel you've gotten under the skin of Max, Angela, and even the nutcase hit-man. My guess is you won't be able to stop reading until you flip the last page.
So Max agrees to meet Angela's cousin's buddy, a hit-man named Popeye. What Max doesn't know is that Popeye is actually Angela's real boyfriend. He's a psychopathic Irish "proveen" -- a small-time enforcer for the "Ra" (IRA), who are smart enough to keep him at arm's length. Predictably, given this cast of characters, the hit goes down, plenty of things go awry, and things start to spin out of control.
Compounding matters is a hood named Bobby Rosa, now confined to a wheelchair, who makes his living blackmailing couples engaged in compromising relationships. Through sheer coincidence, Rosa happens to snap some shots of Max and Angela "celebrating" his wife's departure. Once Rosa confronts Fisher -- who is already under heavy police scrutiny -- with the photos, the plot swings in a rush of completely unpredictable turns.
You'll be hard-pressed to tell where Bruen's work ends and Starr's begins. The story is seamless and pulse-pounding. The characterizations are deep; you'll feel you've gotten under the skin of Max, Angela, and even the nutcase hit-man. My guess is you won't be able to stop reading until you flip the last page.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
A dark, gritty, and inappropriately hilarious cautionary tale
19 May 2006
Format:Mass Market Paperback
BUST is the result of an unholy alliance between Ken Bruen and Jason Starr, two modern masters of noir fiction. They bring together a fearsome and wondrous mix of vile characters on the streets of New York City to create a caper novel worthy of Westlake or Leonard, but with the dark edge of...well, Bruen and Starr.
Max Fisher is a software millionaire who's tired of Deirdre, his shrewish, ungrateful and unappreciative wife. The fact that Fisher is seeing Angela Petrakos, his Greek-Irish secretary, isn't helping matters. Angela is the perfect combination of angel and hooker, with a bit of gold digger thrown into the mix. When Fisher wonders out loud what life would be like without Deirdre, Angela wastes no time in setting up a meeting between Fisher and a very strange hitman known only to him as "Popeye." The shooter is Angela's paramour, Dillon, fresh off the boat from Dublin. Their plan is to acquire Fisher's fortune for themselves. The only problem is that Angela is no longer crazy about Dillon, and Dillon feels the same way about Angela.
Dillon is without question a bad guy, but there's no one here who is truly likable --- except perhaps for Bobby Rosa, a redoubtable paraplegic who spends his days brooding bitterly over his past career as a criminal and surreptitiously taking photographs of women. Rosa's likeability is only made possible by the revelation of a soft side one would not expect. When he has the chance to blackmail Fisher, however, he jumps at the opportunity. Everyone in BUST is caught in a dark, swirling whirlpool that takes everything and gives nothing.
This is a dark, gritty and inappropriately hilarious cautionary tale --- exquisitely conceived and flawlessly written --- about getting what you think you want and regretting it, and the endless consequences of evil deeds.
BUST may have spoiled me for reading anything else for a while. I haven't had a book make me feel this entertained in such a warped fashion since I read DIG THAT CRAZY GRAVE by Richard Prather at the tender age of 10. But that's another story. For now, don't let another sun set without reading BUST.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
Max Fisher is a software millionaire who's tired of Deirdre, his shrewish, ungrateful and unappreciative wife. The fact that Fisher is seeing Angela Petrakos, his Greek-Irish secretary, isn't helping matters. Angela is the perfect combination of angel and hooker, with a bit of gold digger thrown into the mix. When Fisher wonders out loud what life would be like without Deirdre, Angela wastes no time in setting up a meeting between Fisher and a very strange hitman known only to him as "Popeye." The shooter is Angela's paramour, Dillon, fresh off the boat from Dublin. Their plan is to acquire Fisher's fortune for themselves. The only problem is that Angela is no longer crazy about Dillon, and Dillon feels the same way about Angela.
Dillon is without question a bad guy, but there's no one here who is truly likable --- except perhaps for Bobby Rosa, a redoubtable paraplegic who spends his days brooding bitterly over his past career as a criminal and surreptitiously taking photographs of women. Rosa's likeability is only made possible by the revelation of a soft side one would not expect. When he has the chance to blackmail Fisher, however, he jumps at the opportunity. Everyone in BUST is caught in a dark, swirling whirlpool that takes everything and gives nothing.
This is a dark, gritty and inappropriately hilarious cautionary tale --- exquisitely conceived and flawlessly written --- about getting what you think you want and regretting it, and the endless consequences of evil deeds.
BUST may have spoiled me for reading anything else for a while. I haven't had a book make me feel this entertained in such a warped fashion since I read DIG THAT CRAZY GRAVE by Richard Prather at the tender age of 10. But that's another story. For now, don't let another sun set without reading BUST.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Gritty book full of despicable characters! Exactly what it should be...
25 July 2007
Format:Mass Market Paperback
BUST is a never-before-published book in the Hard Case Crime series. Hard Case Crime books contains classic crime novels as well as new thrillers. One thing all these stories have in common (I've read six of them) is that none of the characters are good people. Bust takes that to the extreme. Max Fisher is having an affair with Angela. Max hates his wife and hires someone Angela knows to kill his wife. Angela lives with Dillon and is only after Max for his money. Bobby is a wheelchair bound criminal blackmailing Max. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Each character commits a heinous act after heinous act, each plot turn worse than the one before, each character action is usually a crime to cover up a previous crime. None of the characters are sympathetic. All of them are clueless. And that is why I recommend this violent, gritty novel. It fits right in with the genre. If you like Hard Case Crime books, then you must read this one. If you are new to the series, I suggest checking out a classic to get familiar with what to expect. There is nothing uplifting in BUST, but that doesn't mean you still can't enjoy the awful selfishness of the evil characters.
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