Pain Killers: A Novel [Hardcover]

Jerry Stahl (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 3, 2009

Down-and-out ex-cop and not-quite-reformed addict Manny Rupert accepts an undercover job to find out if a California prison inmate is who he claims to be: Josef Mengele, aka the Angel of Death. Did the sadistic legend, whose Auschwitz crimes still horrify, fake his own death thirty years ago? Suddenly Manny finds himself in the middle of a conspiracy involving genocide, drugs, eugenics, human experiments, and America's secret history of collusion with the Nazis—all while careening from one extreme of apocalypse-adjacent reality to the other.

Not for the faint of heart, Jerry Stahl's Pain Killers hurtles readers into a disturbing, original, and alarmingly real world filled with some of the strangest sex, most horrific violence, and screaming wit ever found on the page.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. The last place Manny Rupert wants to go is prison. But when the opportunity arises to investigate an inmate's claim to be Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele, it's too much for the ex-cop-turned-PI—last seen in 2002's Plainclothes Dead—to pass up. Masquerading as a drug counselor—despite his own addictions—Manny meets the nonagenarian who calls himself Mengele and hears firsthand of the torturous experiments the Angel of Death conducted at Auschwitz. Add to the mix the reappearance of Manny's ex-wife, Tina, whom he sees cavorting in the conjugal trailer with the prison's resident Jewish skinhead. It turns out that Tina not only works for an Internet Christian escort service secretly run by one of the prisoners but is also in league with the same man who hired Manny to spy on Mengele. Lines soon blur between justified revenge and outright cruelty, and it's up to Manny to keep everything straight or die trying. Stahl is no stranger to smashing social taboos, and his trademark blend of ballsy, blacker-than-black humor and wry social commentary lets him find humor in the Third Reich. (Mar.)
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From Booklist

When last seen, Jewish ex-cop, former addict, and three-time-liver-transplant-recipient Manny Rubert was married to Tina, who had dispatched her former husband by adding ground glass and Drano to his breakfast cereal (Plainclothes Naked, 2001). Now they’re divorced, and Manny, missing her desperately, is hired to go to San Quentin to determine whether a 97-year-old inmate is Josef Mengele. What follows is a truly black and bizarre mix of the horrific and the hilarious: Mengele really is Mengele, and he spends his time experimenting on inmates for Big Pharma. He is also a still-dangerous, preening egomaniac who believes his “research” should be celebrated by a jaded, corrupt America. And only jaded Manny and Tina (yes, she is back) are there to mete out justice. Along the way, Stahl takes intriguing and often funny shots at prison chic, reality TV, various aspects of prison life, Nazi “science,” and Christian porn Web sites. And, as the title suggests, Manny enjoys a staggering array of dangerous drugs and toxic substances. Pain Killers isn’t for the squeamish, but readers who like shock and laughs with their crime are likely to love it. --Thomas Gaughan

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1 edition (March 3, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060506652
• ISBN-13: 978-0060506650
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,306,099 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Horrific. Funny. Totally irreverant. March 4, 2009

By Denise Crawford TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

In a style similar to Rant: The Oral Biography of Buster Casey, Stahl takes us on a roller coaster ride into San Quentin prison with ex cop Manny Rubert where he is working uncover to prove that one of the prisoners is indeed Josef Mengele, the supposed dead Nazi Angel of Death.

A recovering polydrug addict, Manny (who is also Jewish) is pretending to lead a drug addiction recovery group that includes Mengele. Just why was he hired for this operation, and what do those in charge actually want him to do with the proof that Mengele lives? And what will they actually do with Mengele? Bring him to trial? Kill him in prison? What does Mengele deserve once he's revealed as the monster of the Holocaust? Was he a brilliant scientist or an evil instrument of death?

These questions and the ensuing encounters with a score of bizarre characters take the reader on a trip through the past and into the present with a resounding jolt. The revelations of what Mengele did in the death camps are not particularly new, but the excuses and reasoning that he offers to his audience on a hair raising van excursion, are both shocking and repellant.

I have never read a book quite like this and found it difficult to write a review of it. I can't honestly say I "liked" it, but wow, what an incredible tale this author weaves. The motley crew of associates and characters in the novel look like a circus freak show. The chapter titles read like a sociopathic menu - nothing is left untouched from drugs, sex and torture to animal -- human organ transplants and big pharma conspiracies. Each page brought a new astonishment - what imagination and what a deviant mind this ingeniously demented author has!... The style made me zip through the pages, turning them to see what in the world would be offered up for my digestion on the next one.
It was quite a book - took me from laugh out loud to the brink of nausea.

If you like to step out of your comfort zone and be transported into the strangest prison book you've ever read - take a chance. I guarantee you'll spend most of your reading time with your mouth hanging open and your brain forming the word -- WHAT!?!?!?!? Read more ›

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars A Promising Book That Descends into Hell March 19, 2009

By Geoffrey Kleinman VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I want to like Pain Killers, I really do. Jerry Stahl's style is dark, sharp, caustic and amusing and in Pain Killers he flashes some moments of brilliance. Unfortunately those high moments are eclipsed by a near fetish obsession with the politics of the Holocaust and most specifically Josef Mengele.

With a solid set up, extraordinarily strong main character and pitch perfect first act Pain Killers seems like it could be an absolute break out book. The book takes an extreme left turn about mid way through that completely derails the initial momentum and narrative. Stahl seemed to have a choice, either follow the arch of Manny Rupert or go for Mengele. He chose the latter and the final act of the book is so absurd and ridiculous that it decimates everything before it.

Stahl's writing peaks early on with descriptions that leap off the page, but as the book goes on he loses touch with the world he's created in order to revisit the theme of the politics of the Holocaust and how maybe human experiments aren't such a 'bad' thing. To most this theme will be distasteful enough to completely skip this book, I found it pretty hard to stomach. The real audience for this book are Stahl fans, perhaps people who've already read Plainclothes Naked, otherwise readers looking for something edgy would do much better with Chuck Palahniuk or Bret Easton Ellis.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Dark, sick, yet funny in a demented way April 19, 2009

By Ravenskya VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I'm re-writing because I've decided that my first review wasn't exactly clear:

This is probably not a book that I would have selected on my own - having hated the movie "Permanent Midnight." In the end it was an enjoyable read - if not a bit preposterous.

The Good Guy - Manny Rupert: an Ex-cop, on again off again junkie with a bad liver, who married a woman he met after she killed her husband and he responded to the police call. He's down on his luck, and not doing himself much good - then a strange old Jewish man shows up in his house, beats him with a walker and hires him to go undercover in San Quentin

The Good Girl - Manny's ex-wife, soon to be ex-ex-wife he hopes, is a neurotic bulimic on again off again junkie/prostitute/opportunist. Her morality is questionable but somewhere under all that sex and junk - there's a heart of gold (at least we're told)

The Bad Guys - Oh there are so many of them, but to keep from giving too much away I'll only list our target, the 90 year old blond German man in San Quentin who swears that he's Dr. Joseph Mengele (Nazi Death Camp Doctor at Auschwitz).

So, crazy Jewish man with walker hires Rupert to go undercover as a drug councilor at San Quentin to determine if the crazy old German actually IS Mengele. Things go bad quickly as Rupert's ex-wife shows up with an Aryan Brotherhood leader who also happens to be Jewish. The people on Rupert's side might actually be more dangerous then the convicts.

The writing is verbally simplistic, a lot of people rant and rave about how grotesque this is - but as a horror fan, I've got to say - it's not that bad. Most of the disgusting parts are simply people recounting what Mengele had done - which IS gross, but it's not extremely explicit in that respect.... There is a lot of sex, drugs, racial slurs, anti-government garbage, and a whole lot of the German guy arguing about the good he did in the death camps - like slaughtering babies to cure cancer... that part gets old fast.

To be honest, this isn't the best or worse book I've read. The characters are all fairly despicable in one way or another and the plot only holds together loosely. At times you will find yourself shaking your head trying to figure out just how you're supposed to buy all of what's being sold to you here. If you are looking for something comparable - try Tim Dorsey- ADHD writing, spastic plot, and a lot of material to make your average reader cringe.

Rated R - Do not hand to the kiddies. Read more ›

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Dark, Twisted, Funny and Very Good August 18, 2010

By Dave Mayer VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Manny Rupert is a P.I. with a drug problem. He's got a money problem too, he'd got none and he's about to lose his home. Then he's accosted by a man in a walker who turns out be a wacked out crazy millionaire named Harry Zell. Zell believes the Angel of Death, you know the guy they made the BOYS FROM BRAZIL movie about, isn't dead. He believe Josef Mengele is alive and maybe not so well, but still breathing at a ripe old age of Ninety-seven in San Quentin.

Zell want's Harry to go undercover as a drug counselor and head up a prisoner recover group, sort of like the blind leading the blind, but Harry's got no choice, he's broke and Zell's offering him ten grand in addition to clearing up his mortgage problem.

So why does Zell want to know if Mengele is alive? What's he planning? Is Mengele Alive? If so, what's he doing in San Quention? Then there's the problem of Manny's ex-wife, she'd killed her first husband by lacing his Lucky Charms with the glass from broken light bulbs and drano, what's she doing having conjugal visits with one of the inmates? And who knew Jews could join the Aryan Brotherhood? And who knew someone could write a mystery that was so dark and twisted and funny and oh so good that you'd hang on every word.