Order LAST DANCE IN PHOENIX here
(also reviewed)
Order SIRENS here
One click. The past was present. Roy was back.
Fuck.
The last great thing to happen to crime fiction in general was, in my opinion, the transcendent success of television series BREAKING BAD. It was penned by Vince Gilligan, who nobody knew when the first episode aired on AMC, which means it won over millions of Americans out of the quality of its writing alone. Kurt Reichenbaugh's latest novel LAST DANCE IN PHOENIX probably is the most BREAKING BAD thing I've came across since BREAKING BAD, while keeping a mind of its own. It means the book compares advantageously to Vince Gilligan's iconic series, although I doubt it'll have nowhere near as much success because it was published on a medium BREAKING BAD fans don't seem to care about. Don't get me started on that.
Kent Starling is the stereotypical quiet American. He lives a meaningless life in Arizona, working a dead end office job and going through the motions of his marriage with his wife Denise. The precarious balance of Kent's life tips over though, when he receives an email from his childhood friend Roy Biddles, who wants to reconnect with him after not giving any news for several decades. Kent was never a friend to Roy and the thought of having him back in his life distresses him. It's only the first domino in a series that'll turn Kent's quiet and meaningless existence upside down. It never was something he was meant to have anyway.
What makes LAST DANCE IN PHOENIX so much fun is that author Kurt Reichenbaugh never gives you a clear portrait of his protagonist's values. The reader never knows who Kent really is. Of course, there are background scenes featuring him and Roy, but they illustrate their relationship and never who Kent is as a person. This stylistic choice shifts the responsibility of moral judgment on Kent to the reader, and that is just talking sexy in my ear. I love it when reading becomes such an active responsibility. Of course, Kent does some despicable stuff, but he shows a lot of vulnerability and even some courage, which really makes it your prerogative to decide what kind of man he is to you.
There is a more obvious, aggressive anti-corporate statement in LAST DANCE IN PHOENIX. Kurt Reichenbaugh brings it up pretty cleverly, though. What first seems to be a novel about blackmail gradually turns into a vitriolic closed doors confrontation between angry white men who all have an eyesight on various privileged positions. What makes the prose of Kurt Reichenbaugh great in LAST DANCE IN PHOENIX isn't the broad, emotional strokes, but his subtlety and his attention to detail that give his novel a human veneer that fiction like BREAKING BAD also had. Kent Starling is deeply flawed, but it's difficult to think you'd to better than him in is situation.
I liked Kurt Reichenbaugh's first novel SIRENS despite a couple nagging flaws, but I had a wicked fun time with his new release LAST DANCE IN PHOENIX, which is a morally gray tango danced between mediocre people refusing to see themselves for who they truly are. It's the sort of stuff I love to read about because I identify with it on a visceral level. I don't think it'll ever achieve the shadow of the level of popularity of BREAKING BAD simply because people who love the show love good television more than they like good fiction, but the fact still remains that LAST DANCE IN PHOENIX is the most interesting cultural byproduct of the iconic television series. The small overlap of people who both like the show and deeply love to read will like the shit out of this novel.
Kent Starling is the stereotypical quiet American. He lives a meaningless life in Arizona, working a dead end office job and going through the motions of his marriage with his wife Denise. The precarious balance of Kent's life tips over though, when he receives an email from his childhood friend Roy Biddles, who wants to reconnect with him after not giving any news for several decades. Kent was never a friend to Roy and the thought of having him back in his life distresses him. It's only the first domino in a series that'll turn Kent's quiet and meaningless existence upside down. It never was something he was meant to have anyway.
What makes LAST DANCE IN PHOENIX so much fun is that author Kurt Reichenbaugh never gives you a clear portrait of his protagonist's values. The reader never knows who Kent really is. Of course, there are background scenes featuring him and Roy, but they illustrate their relationship and never who Kent is as a person. This stylistic choice shifts the responsibility of moral judgment on Kent to the reader, and that is just talking sexy in my ear. I love it when reading becomes such an active responsibility. Of course, Kent does some despicable stuff, but he shows a lot of vulnerability and even some courage, which really makes it your prerogative to decide what kind of man he is to you.
There is a more obvious, aggressive anti-corporate statement in LAST DANCE IN PHOENIX. Kurt Reichenbaugh brings it up pretty cleverly, though. What first seems to be a novel about blackmail gradually turns into a vitriolic closed doors confrontation between angry white men who all have an eyesight on various privileged positions. What makes the prose of Kurt Reichenbaugh great in LAST DANCE IN PHOENIX isn't the broad, emotional strokes, but his subtlety and his attention to detail that give his novel a human veneer that fiction like BREAKING BAD also had. Kent Starling is deeply flawed, but it's difficult to think you'd to better than him in is situation.
I liked Kurt Reichenbaugh's first novel SIRENS despite a couple nagging flaws, but I had a wicked fun time with his new release LAST DANCE IN PHOENIX, which is a morally gray tango danced between mediocre people refusing to see themselves for who they truly are. It's the sort of stuff I love to read about because I identify with it on a visceral level. I don't think it'll ever achieve the shadow of the level of popularity of BREAKING BAD simply because people who love the show love good television more than they like good fiction, but the fact still remains that LAST DANCE IN PHOENIX is the most interesting cultural byproduct of the iconic television series. The small overlap of people who both like the show and deeply love to read will like the shit out of this novel.