Customer Reviews

Arizona Kiss

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Though I consider myself a voracious reader, Arizona Kiss is the first book I've ever read in what I would characterize as the "noir" style of writing. It's kind of dark, kind of gritty, but the story really grabbed me from beginning to end.
The fact that I found this book so interesting is even more remarkable because I found it in the discard bin of my local (Chapters) book superstore and the cover art is really terrible. So I started it figuring I wouldn't get more than 5 pages in.
It's depressing really. The author, Ray Ring writes this great book, but because of the way the book industry works - his book ends up ignored in the remainder bin with barely a presence of Amazon. I wonder how many other great books have a similar fate?

Though I consider myself a voracious reader, Arizona Kiss is the first book I've ever read in what I would characterize as the "noir" style of writing. It's kind of dark, kind of gritty, but the story really grabbed me from beginning to end.
The fact that I found this book so interesting is even more remarkable because I found it in the discard bin of my local (Chapters) book superstore and the cover art is really terrible. So I started it figuring I wouldn't get more than 5 pages in.
It's depressing really. The author, Ray Ring writes this great book, but because of the way the book industry works - his book ends up ignored in the remainder bin with barely a presence of Amazon. I wonder how many other great books have a similar fate?

This south-western noir thriller tells of a plot to expose a former pillar of the community as a brutal criminal. It's told from the point of view of Macky, a photojournalist living in Tucson, Arizona. Macky is the kind of man prepared to go the extra mile in order to get the story.

Before hitting us with the main story, we open with an example of how far Macky will go to get his story when he impersonates a miner. He plunges into the depths of the earth to take photos of the dangerous working conditions that a major mining company allows its employees to work. Effectively we are told that here is a guy who is prepared to go to any lengths to get a good story. The fact that he unearths a major scandal proves that he can deliver.

But it's the opening couple of sentences that set the hook in my mouth with expectation of an interesting story:
"I didn't set out to kill anyone. All I wanted was a good story, which is all a journalist ever wants, but I should have seen it was going bad."

This is the kind of opening that prompts all sorts of questions in me. Obviously someone dies, but who and how? How was Macky involved? How did it go bad? Was Macky affected by the death?

The good story that Macky refers to in the quoted opening sentence involves a retired judge who has a passion for dog fighting. That's right, dog fighting...as in putting two pit bulls in a ring and letting them have at it in a fight to the death. Highly illegal and just the sort of juicy stuff that has Macky salivating at the prospect of revealing.

Macky's source is the judge's former girlfriend, Alice Malone, who has been abused by the judge and is looking for a chance to get her revenge. She has come to Macky after seeing his earlier mining expose and wants the judge to receive the same sort of treatment as the mining company.

What follows is a sordid affair between Macky and Malone as he falls under her spell, allowing himself to be manipulated, both by the graphic scenes he witnesses at a dog fight and by her stories of abuse at the hands of the judge. She becomes the ultimate temptress, whipping Macky up into such moral outrage that he is open to the suggestion that perhaps destroying the judge with words and pictures may not be going far enough.

ARIZONA KISS is an emotionally harrowing story set in a bleak (and somewhat despised by Macky) land. It's a story of betrayal and survival, and like most noir stories, leaves you feeling a little uncomfortable at the end. It contains scenes of tremendous violence, both canine and human which some people may find disturbing.