London Boulevard: A Novel

"Mitchell" is a hard guy. He is just out of prison after three years of payback for a brutal beating he doesn't remember. But best mate Billy Norton is waiting at the gate with a sweet setup for Mitch as the muscle for a loan shark. Though Mitchell's feeling are mixed. While the perqs that come with the leg breaking are good, he'd just as soon skip another stay at the gray bar hotel. When a job as a live-in handy man for aging actress Lillian Palmer falls into his lap, Mitchell takes a shot - if a somewhat tentative shot for the career criminal - at the straight and narrow.From this backdrop, the prolific Ken Bruen literally rips out another savage crime novel with more grit than Jones Beach and Bruen's trademark black humor. Lillian Palmer, deliciously demented and coming complete with a sexual appetite that belies her years, provides a bizarre twist to what otherwise may have been a pedestrian and often-told story of betrayal and retribution. But the real brilliance in the author's twisted logic comes in the form of "Jordan", Palmer's mysterious butler who proves to be so much more. Bruen's staccato dialogue and disregard for small annoyances like punctuation or other literary convention add to the quirky appeal of Mitchell and the eclectic cast of thugs and wankers that follow him through the pages of this razor-edged page turner, which should keep you guessing right up to the bloody last sentence.Adding to Mitch's (and Bruen's) sandpaper charm is an uncongruous and unabashed love of crime fiction and the authors that pen them, with references to Andrew Vachss, Dennis LeHane, and other masters of crime who are liberally quoted and add credibility and depth to an already addictive storyline.If you haven't read Bruen yet - an unforgivable injustice that he remains relatively unknown, at least on this side of the Atlantic - then "London Boulevard" is a great place to start what you can expect to be a long, entertaining, and brutal acquaintance.

What if Norma Desmond (Sunset Boulevard starring Gloria Swanson and William Holden) had lived in London and fixated on a small time gangster. This blatant ripoff includes the Eastern-European-accented butler/ex-husband, the longed for "comeback," fake fan letters, and vintage cars. She even gives her boy toy a cigarette case and stages one-woman shows for him. A nice twist in the end but I've read fan fiction with more creative spark.Mitchel isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer (he spends most of the book detailing his wardrobe choices and what music he's listening to) and none of the other characters are particularly engaging. I kept waiting for it to get better but it's a mercifully quick read.Saw the movie and read the reviews but wanted to compare to the source material before making a judgment. Even though they were still cliches, Monahan gave the characters more depth particularly the actress and butler. He brought out the full menace of Gant and upped the sleaze factor in Billy. I don't fully like the revamped ending but I'm not sure how it could have been improved.All in all I prefer the movie treatment.

Having seen the movie starring Colin Farrell (which was pretty good), I was interested to read the book. It varies in a number of ways from the film and I can see why. Numerous plot points are identical to those in the Billy Wilder film Sunset Boulevard. The makers of the Farrell film must have found the parallels all too blatant. I'd cite chapter and verse, but that would spoil it for you. I have to think that author Ken Bruen's rip-off of plot points is intentional, given the similarity of the titles, Sunset Boulevard and London Boulevard. Despite that odd authorial choice, it's still not a bad read.

Bruen is good. Very good. A tight short novel that bursts with energy and a cast of lively characters. The streets roil and justice is served. Read it and you'll become a Bruen fan.

Not his best. He seems to be tending toward a formulaic approach. Same story; same action; different characters. But his narrative writing grabs you and won't let go.

This is one of the darker (if you can imagine that!) books by Ken Bruen. It has the usual colorful, damaged charactors, plot twists and the familiar fast pacing we've come to expect. If you're a fan of Bruen's books you are sure to like it. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as a first read by this author, rather one of the early Jack Taylor series, as this would help to set the context.

Ken Bruen , He's the man....almost everything this man write will keep you on the edge of your seat!

Noir master Ken Bruen does his own strange take on Sunset Boulevard--distinctly European yeat holding tight to the soul of the homage. If you haven't read him, not at all a bad place to start.