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Wrong 'Em Boyo
A 10,000-word short story collection by one of Scotland's finest crime writers.
"Ray Banks writes with harshness, humour and elegance, and his punchy dialogue teems with vigorous authenticity." – The Times
WRONG 'EM, BOYO was commissioned by Akashic Books for their DUBLIN NOIR anthology, edited by Ken Bruen. Shuggie, a low-level Edinburgh thug, is charged with collecting the balls of an Irish rival as revenge for a robbery.
MONEY SHOT was commissioned by Bleak House Books for their EXPLETIVE DELETED anthology, edited by Jennifer Jordan. An unstable movie obsessive journeys into Newcastle's heart of darkness to avenge his wife's death.
THE BALLAD OF DAVEY ROBSON was commissioned by Busted Flush Press for DAMN NEAR DEAD: AN ANTHOLOGY OF GEEZER NOIR, edited by Duane Swierczynski. Davey Robson, former armed robber turned low-profile derelict, finds himself the target of revenge for a crime committed years earlier, back when the Newcastle quayside was nothing but a building site.
RUN, RABBIT, RUN was commissioned by Victim Support Scotland for their SHATTERED: EVERY CRIME HAS A VICTIM anthology. Now Terry Davies has found the addict burglar whose crime turned his wife into a nervous wreck, will the victim become a criminal?
Praise for Ray Banks's Cal Innes novels
"Tough and assured . . . Banks is updating the noir novel with an utterly original sensibility."
- Publisher's Weekly
"Bleakly, desperately funny, Ray Banks offers us a glimpse of what Samuel Beckett might have read like had he turned his hand to crime fiction."
- Crime Always Pays
"Ray Banks’s writing is a dark delight, and Saturday's Child is like blunt surgery from a cricket bat. Fast, hard, packed with madcap violence and twisted humor, it’s a bone-jarring ride through England’s bleak underbelly."
- Patrick Quinlan, author of Smoked
"Saturday's Child is a knock-out, written with the kind of energy and passion that far too few writers can muster. Fresh and fierce, it raises the bar for hardboiled fiction on both sides of the Atlantic."
- New York Times Bestseller Laura Lippman, author of What The Dead Know
"Saturday's Child is fascinating, fresh and darkly funny. It will be an exotic entertainment for American readers of hard-boiled detective fiction."
- Thomas Perry, author of Nightlife
"Banks wields language with a knifefighter's precision, with much the same result. From the first words to the last, this book flashes brilliantly."
- Don Winslow, The Power Of The Dog and The Winter of Frankie Machine.
"Banks is part of the post-Rankin generation for whom hardboiled is not just a state of mind but a reality. Tough-guy colloquial prose and a pace fast enough to skin a rabbit, at the service of a tale of down-and-dirty realism: this is fiery stuff."
- Maxim Jakubowski, The Guardian
"...terrific, brooding and chilling prose"
-Tom Adair, The Scotsman
"...a fine example of energetic, visceral and compelling storytelling... This is properly thrilling stuff."
- The Big Issue In Scotland
"Let's make this official then: Saturday's Child is not only an excellent book, but it manages to do something which is damn near impossible to pull off: keep straight two first-person POVs written in different tenses and completely different dialects. Wait for the cricket bat, but the real gems are the incredibly strong voice, Cal's further descent into hell and how profoundly screwed up families can really be.
"Ray Banks writes with harshness, humour and elegance, and his punchy dialogue teems with vigorous authenticity." – The Times
WRONG 'EM, BOYO was commissioned by Akashic Books for their DUBLIN NOIR anthology, edited by Ken Bruen. Shuggie, a low-level Edinburgh thug, is charged with collecting the balls of an Irish rival as revenge for a robbery.
MONEY SHOT was commissioned by Bleak House Books for their EXPLETIVE DELETED anthology, edited by Jennifer Jordan. An unstable movie obsessive journeys into Newcastle's heart of darkness to avenge his wife's death.
THE BALLAD OF DAVEY ROBSON was commissioned by Busted Flush Press for DAMN NEAR DEAD: AN ANTHOLOGY OF GEEZER NOIR, edited by Duane Swierczynski. Davey Robson, former armed robber turned low-profile derelict, finds himself the target of revenge for a crime committed years earlier, back when the Newcastle quayside was nothing but a building site.
RUN, RABBIT, RUN was commissioned by Victim Support Scotland for their SHATTERED: EVERY CRIME HAS A VICTIM anthology. Now Terry Davies has found the addict burglar whose crime turned his wife into a nervous wreck, will the victim become a criminal?
Praise for Ray Banks's Cal Innes novels
"Tough and assured . . . Banks is updating the noir novel with an utterly original sensibility."
- Publisher's Weekly
"Bleakly, desperately funny, Ray Banks offers us a glimpse of what Samuel Beckett might have read like had he turned his hand to crime fiction."
- Crime Always Pays
"Ray Banks’s writing is a dark delight, and Saturday's Child is like blunt surgery from a cricket bat. Fast, hard, packed with madcap violence and twisted humor, it’s a bone-jarring ride through England’s bleak underbelly."
- Patrick Quinlan, author of Smoked
"Saturday's Child is a knock-out, written with the kind of energy and passion that far too few writers can muster. Fresh and fierce, it raises the bar for hardboiled fiction on both sides of the Atlantic."
- New York Times Bestseller Laura Lippman, author of What The Dead Know
"Saturday's Child is fascinating, fresh and darkly funny. It will be an exotic entertainment for American readers of hard-boiled detective fiction."
- Thomas Perry, author of Nightlife
"Banks wields language with a knifefighter's precision, with much the same result. From the first words to the last, this book flashes brilliantly."
- Don Winslow, The Power Of The Dog and The Winter of Frankie Machine.
"Banks is part of the post-Rankin generation for whom hardboiled is not just a state of mind but a reality. Tough-guy colloquial prose and a pace fast enough to skin a rabbit, at the service of a tale of down-and-dirty realism: this is fiery stuff."
- Maxim Jakubowski, The Guardian
"...terrific, brooding and chilling prose"
-Tom Adair, The Scotsman
"...a fine example of energetic, visceral and compelling storytelling... This is properly thrilling stuff."
- The Big Issue In Scotland
"Let's make this official then: Saturday's Child is not only an excellent book, but it manages to do something which is damn near impossible to pull off: keep straight two first-person POVs written in different tenses and completely different dialects. Wait for the cricket bat, but the real gems are the incredibly strong voice, Cal's further descent into hell and how profoundly screwed up families can really be.
41 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 14, 2012
4 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 2, 2013
Let's be honest here. Ray Banks is one of four or five writers working in the hard-boiled/noir genre these days that you really can't go wrong with. And I'm particularly partial to his short stories and novellas. Right there are a handful of shorts that get the job done with style, menace, black humor, and surgical precision. Banks is one of our finest writers and Wrong Em, Boyo is a great introduction to his work.
December 5, 2012
Average, no surprises, Scottish slang, working class, knives... pretty well it
January 24, 2013
Nice collection of four previously published shorts. I love everything Banks writes. Gritty, Violent, and Dark. Recommended. .99 cents on Amazon.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews