SLIDE by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

[Gerald So]

Picking up from last year's Bust, Max Fisher wakes up in a motel in Robertson, Alabama, no idea how he got there. Using his friendship with a young stoner desk clerk, Max returns to New York as a high-rolling crack dealer. Meanwhile, femme fatale Angela Petrakos finds herself mixed up with an aspiring Irish serial killer called Slide.

Slide is less plot-driven than Bust. The first half of the novel mostly follows Max building his drug empire, and you just wonder when things will start to go sour. It's nonetheless fun to see where the characters are now. My favorite sections of the novel are from Max's seriously warped and thus hilarious view of himself and others.

During a DetecToday chat in September, Hard Case Crime editor Charles Ardai mentioned Bruen and Starr were working on a third book in the series, To The Max.