Twisted City [Paperback]

Jason Starr (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 13, 2004

From the acclaimed noir novelist Jason Starr comes this savage portrait of a misanthropic man stuck in a New York nightmare. Written in caustic, streamlined prose, Twisted City is a chilling depiction of how quickly one's life can take a turn for the worst.

Times are tough for David Miller, a journalist for a second-rate financial magazine who hates his boss, is tired of supporting his girlfriend's partying lifestyle, and recently lost his sister to cancer. But things are about to get much worse. When he loses his wallet in a midtown bar, he is launched into a world where he finds himself being blackmailed by junkies, lying to his friends and family, and stumbling into a crime that may cost him his life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After fumbling a casual pickup in a bar, financial journalist David Miller realizes his wallet has been lifted, and he quickly descends into Manhattan's underbelly in Starr's sinister black comedy. Life has been rough lately: deeply depressed after the death of his beloved sister, David lost his job with the Wall Street Journal. He hates his new job and despises his younger live-in girlfriend, who seems more and more psychotic every day. But that was yesterday—today he's negotiating in a sweltering closed-in room in an Alphabet City tenement with a junkie hooker who claims she "found" his wallet. David knows she must be in on the sting, and the wallet isn't that important except for his favorite picture of his sister he keeps in it. But from facing mere extortion, it takes only a few hours for the reporter to find himself vertiginously plunged into murder and blackmail. Starr (Tough Luck), an heir of the bleakly noir mantle of Jim Thompson, is a master at portraying New York as a city of the damned. In David he gives his ever-expanding cult readership a normal guy, calmly accepting a ticket to hell, where an ending worthy of Charles Willeford at his most absurd awaits him.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

David Miller is in a funk. He recently slumped down the journalistic food chain from the Wall Street Journal to a finance rag called Manhattan Business. The reason for Miller's fall: his... obsession with his sister only increased after she died of cancer. In addition, the young reporter lost his friends after rejecting their prescient assessment of his girlfriend as "psychotic"--and she's repaid his loyalty by partying the nights away with another man. So when Miller's lost wallet leads to a shakedown by a junkie hooker, he figures it's just another bad episode in the bleak sitcom of his life. But then the hooker's jealous boyfriend dies, potentially putting Miller on the hook for a murder rap. Flames licking at his heels, Miller grimly soldiers through a squalid story that takes on his flattened affect as it navigates the usual sordid twists and dares readers to give a damn. It's the literary equivalent of a Big Mac or Snickers bar: satisfying to devour but immediately forgotten--save for a familiar pang of guilt about straying from healthier fare. Frank Sennett
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (July 13, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400075068
• ISBN-13: 978-1400075065
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,172,868 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

JASON STARR is the international bestselling author of many novels, including THE PACK which is out in hardcover and e-book from Berkley/Ace on June 7, 2011. Starr's other novels are COLD CALLER, NOTHING PERSONAL, FAKE I.D., HARD FEELINGS, TOUGH LUCK, TWISTED CITY, LIGHTS OUT, THE FOLLOWER and PANIC ATTACK. He has won the Anthony Award and the Barry Award and his books are published in more than a dozen languages. He has also co-written three novels with Ken Bruen--BUST, SLIDE, and THE MAX--and edited BLOODLINES, an anthology of horse racing stories for Vintage Books. He lives in Manhattan and is currently writing the sequel to THE PACK.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jim Thompson 101, August 21, 2004

By 

S. Harris (Spotsylvania, VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Twisted City (Paperback)

To hear David Miller tell it, he's just a normal guy seeking a normal life. A new place in the country, a new girl, maybe a hobby like wine tasting, and things will start to right themselves. But you shouldn't trust the speaker, he's not to be trusted, since he doesn't even know himself. Jason Starr's dandy little noir, "Twisted City," is probably the closest thing I've read to a Jim Thompson novel yet. A short time back, I ran across a similarly impressive Thompson-like effort in Andrew Vachss's "The Getaway Man." The one distinction there however, was the voice of Eddie, criminal that he is, also something of a sweet victim. You don't see many of those in Thompson land. And it is in that sense that Starr is truer to the master. "Twisted City" is dark through and through, but leavened with comic (if black) humor and dialogue.

Miller, the speaker, is on surface a journalist coming off the loss of his sister. Like so many modern day city types, Miller compartmentalizes his life. But boy, what he sticks away in those hidden compartments (and wallet)! And don't push this seemingly rational man too far. He is capable of messing you up. But pressures are mounting in David's life, all triggered by the loss (theft) of his wallet. Junkies, blackmailers, a partying girlfriend with a past of her own, you hate to see Miller pick up the phone or open the door to find out what new curve ball is coming his way. Suddenly, carefully erected walls start to dissolve, and other realities begin to bleed through . Miller even starts having conversations with his dead sister Barbara. The voice here is remarkable, and reminiscent of various leading Thompson characters (Lou Ford from the "The Killer Inside Me" comes instantly to mind). One big secret you anticipate right away, but that's not the real surprise. It's the voice - and what it becomes. Kind of like watching a serpent's egg hatch.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great dark book by great modern noir writer, May 7, 2006

By 

Noirgirl "Noirgirl" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Twisted City (Paperback)

I'm a huge noir fan (Hammett, Cain) and am always looking for new noir fiction by contemporary writers. Most of the time, I am disappointed to find that what is being marketed as "noir" really doesn't get the power and the style of the original form. Not so here. This is not a neo-noir knockoff, but a fantastic, twisted, intricately plotted book in the style of a classical noir work, but with a new and modern spin. It kind of knocked my socks off.

You shouldn't read this book (or any noir, really) if you are easily skeeved out. But if you like noir, you'll love this. The author has an original, accessible, extremely engaging style. I was drawn in from the beginning. You might be able to guess some of the themes of the book, or, as a reviewer said below, some of the protagonist's past history. But even if you do, really, that isn't even half the story. The fun is watching the plot unfold and ultimately getting inside - way inside - the narrator's head. I guarantee you won't see plenty of the twists coming, and the ending (even if you suspected it was coming) is written in a way that packs a major, creepy, darkly funny punch.

I liked this book so much that I came back here to put all the rest of the author's books in my Amazon cart. If you like dark fiction, mysteries, and old-time noir in particular, check out this book. Starr does the masters proud. Can't wait to read more of him.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Twisted City is well, twisted, October 26, 2004

By 

James O. Born (Lake Worth, Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Twisted City (Paperback)

The mark of a great writer is to move the reader. The emotion can be positive of negative. This story of a financial writer drawn into the dark underbelly of New York and into schemes that out of his league kept me up at night.

Jason Starr shows he is an outstanding writer with this gripping, terrifying ride into an odd and uncomfortable place. He makes you care about the poor guy whose luck goes from bad to worse.

I highly recommend this and any other book by Jason Starr.