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Seven Demons #1
The Price You Pay
Get mad, get even, get paid. What kind of loser stops at getting even?
Didi's dead. That's sad. Jack Price isn't sad, because Jack doesn't care about Didi. Jack is just angry, because if anyone was going to brutally murder his bad-tempered old neighbour, it was him.
But when Jack takes matters into his own hands, he gets a contract taken out on him by an internationally renowned terrorist organisation. Which frankly seems overkill. Jack's just your average high-class coke dealer, after all. On a level playing field against a team of professional killers, he wouldn't stand a chance.
But Jack Price doesn't play fair. And Jack Price is going to make these guys pay.
Didi's dead. That's sad. Jack Price isn't sad, because Jack doesn't care about Didi. Jack is just angry, because if anyone was going to brutally murder his bad-tempered old neighbour, it was him.
But when Jack takes matters into his own hands, he gets a contract taken out on him by an internationally renowned terrorist organisation. Which frankly seems overkill. Jack's just your average high-class coke dealer, after all. On a level playing field against a team of professional killers, he wouldn't stand a chance.
But Jack Price doesn't play fair. And Jack Price is going to make these guys pay.
240 pages, Paperback
First published July 10, 2018
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2875 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 256 reviews
June 11, 2020
If profanity bothers you, this is not the book for you. It's also likely that the book's loose, gonzo style will turn some readers off, but I thought this book was hilarious. Jack Price has a voice you don't hear everyday. He's a cocaine entrepreneur in an unnamed American city. His elderly neighbor Didi is murdered and he asks too many questions about it. "Someone is dead in my building. Someone is dead in my building right under my apartment. Someone is dead in my building right under my apartment in such a way that there are all the cops in the universe plus also Leo and that means they got dead violently and with malice in my building right under my apartment and you just have to take notice of that kind of happening."
Jack's questioning earns him a severe beating. When he tries to hire his friend Karenina for muscle she is forced to decline because she is now working for a group of assassins called the Seven Demons and, unfortunately, Jack is their next target. Jack's beating sets off a chain of retribution and there is an extremely high body count. "The whole order of things in the universe has been uprooted and unless that order can be restored there will be a vortex of destruction: rains of fish, snitches in the hedgerows and a plague of cops." He proceeds to kill the Seven Demons in creative and extremely violent ways. They in turn set out to take all of his money, destroy his business and threaten everyone close to him.
The attitude of this book was similar to "The Intern's Handbook" by Shane Kuhn which I also enjoyed. There are a lot of loose ends left in this book, but the ending definitely leaves room for a sequel. I look forward to it.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
Jack's questioning earns him a severe beating. When he tries to hire his friend Karenina for muscle she is forced to decline because she is now working for a group of assassins called the Seven Demons and, unfortunately, Jack is their next target. Jack's beating sets off a chain of retribution and there is an extremely high body count. "The whole order of things in the universe has been uprooted and unless that order can be restored there will be a vortex of destruction: rains of fish, snitches in the hedgerows and a plague of cops." He proceeds to kill the Seven Demons in creative and extremely violent ways. They in turn set out to take all of his money, destroy his business and threaten everyone close to him.
The attitude of this book was similar to "The Intern's Handbook" by Shane Kuhn which I also enjoyed. There are a lot of loose ends left in this book, but the ending definitely leaves room for a sequel. I look forward to it.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
May 7, 2018
Not your Grandma’s crime novelist. I have no clue who hides behind the pseudonym of Adrian Truhen but whoever it is buy that writer a drink or several because my weekend was just stolen by their creation, the indomitable Jack Price.
This book is cracking. From the opening to the closing it is brilliantly witty, indelibly violently funny and I don’t think I’ve inappropriately giggled and indeed laughed out loud at so many twisted, dark and horrible things as I have whilst reading this book. Ever.
Meet Jack Price. He’s actually quite a lovely drug dealing type. He doesn’t hook children, or use mules, he pays well, earns well and pretty much minds his own business. Then his downstairs neighbour is brutally killed. Jack is vaguely annoyed by this, asks a couple of questions, finds himself the subject of a contract and well, then he gets REALLY pissed off and chaos ensues…
In a nutshell this book is it’s subject matter. Told entirely by Jack, a thinking man’s psychopath, you are entirely dragged along in his wake as he sets out to take down those who seek to destroy him. He doesn’t care who they kill to get to him, he occasionally has a vaguely thoughtful moral moment but soon blows that off and his ingenious and extraordinarily ghastly plans come to fruition in a horrifying yet really really entertaining way. So sue me I laughed at severed heads and fist pumped the air at random blood, death and violence – I just simply could not help it.
From his opinion on Finding Nemo – “the darkest most f***** up thing I have ever seen in my life” – to his admittance that “everyone’s the morally conflicted hero of their own narrative” to his internal ironic snigger at “I’m Jack Price – that’s the Price you pay” he is one of the most amusing, captivating and downright engaging anti-heroes ever. The plot fairly rocks along, there’s no time to take stock, what I loved was he wasn’t infallible by any means, so it’s not at all predictable and things just get darker as you go.
The Price You Pay is simply intoxicating, I almost did feel a little inebriated after reading it. This is one of those books that is exhilarating for all the wrong reasons which of course make them all the right literary reasons and I loved every single last word of it. Bring on more.
All I can shout now is “LUCILLE!”
You’ll see. This one is not to be missed for those that like their crime drama dark and twisted as all hell.
Get Mad. Get Even. Get Paid (What type of loser stops at getting even…)
HIGHLY Recommended.
This book is cracking. From the opening to the closing it is brilliantly witty, indelibly violently funny and I don’t think I’ve inappropriately giggled and indeed laughed out loud at so many twisted, dark and horrible things as I have whilst reading this book. Ever.
Meet Jack Price. He’s actually quite a lovely drug dealing type. He doesn’t hook children, or use mules, he pays well, earns well and pretty much minds his own business. Then his downstairs neighbour is brutally killed. Jack is vaguely annoyed by this, asks a couple of questions, finds himself the subject of a contract and well, then he gets REALLY pissed off and chaos ensues…
In a nutshell this book is it’s subject matter. Told entirely by Jack, a thinking man’s psychopath, you are entirely dragged along in his wake as he sets out to take down those who seek to destroy him. He doesn’t care who they kill to get to him, he occasionally has a vaguely thoughtful moral moment but soon blows that off and his ingenious and extraordinarily ghastly plans come to fruition in a horrifying yet really really entertaining way. So sue me I laughed at severed heads and fist pumped the air at random blood, death and violence – I just simply could not help it.
From his opinion on Finding Nemo – “the darkest most f***** up thing I have ever seen in my life” – to his admittance that “everyone’s the morally conflicted hero of their own narrative” to his internal ironic snigger at “I’m Jack Price – that’s the Price you pay” he is one of the most amusing, captivating and downright engaging anti-heroes ever. The plot fairly rocks along, there’s no time to take stock, what I loved was he wasn’t infallible by any means, so it’s not at all predictable and things just get darker as you go.
The Price You Pay is simply intoxicating, I almost did feel a little inebriated after reading it. This is one of those books that is exhilarating for all the wrong reasons which of course make them all the right literary reasons and I loved every single last word of it. Bring on more.
All I can shout now is “LUCILLE!”
You’ll see. This one is not to be missed for those that like their crime drama dark and twisted as all hell.
Get Mad. Get Even. Get Paid (What type of loser stops at getting even…)
HIGHLY Recommended.
June 8, 2023
On its own each page is incredibly amusing, full of over the top, laugh out loud, vulgar, relentlessly psychopathic Fight Club / Deadpool gonzo energy. However the little effort devoted to pulling everything together into, you know, a cohesive story, gets buried, making it on the whole much less than the sum of its parts and a fairly exhausting experience. I suspect most people will either totally love it or hate it. Read the first 10 pages and you'll pretty much know.
June 28, 2018
Crazy Jack Price.
There's a line I've always joked about in my head. Standing on top of a bar with a broken bottle like fucking old skool is what:
MY NAME'S JACK. YOU DO WHAT I SAY, OR I'M THE PRICE YOU PAY!
I have noted before that I have a special affinity for transgressive crime fiction; in particular, books with philosophising sociopaths for main characters – Alex in A Clockwork Orange, Tyler Durden in Fight Club, everyone around Renton in Trainspotting – books that appear on the surface to be about isolated underworlds but which, as one reads on, reveal themselves to be perceptive revelations of the fundamental ills of the societies in which they're set. If these books also have challenging language and offrule syntax – if I need to slow down and almost translate the writing into ordinary English – so much the better. At first I thought The Price You Pay was exactly this kind of book – philosophising sociopathic main character (check), more cursing and violence than I would expect to encounter in real life (check), a winking disregard for formal grammar rules (check), the skewering of a societal malaise (check?) – but as the plot unspools and the details focus more on the gore than any attempt at a deeper meaning, I needed to downgrade my experience from, “This is great!” to, “This is fun.” And while I may have needed to lower my expectations of this book's literary merits as I went along, I do like to have fun, too. (Note: I read an ARC and quotes may not be in their final forms.)
I have a name. I have a name and a thin hard face with purple bootprints on it. I have thin lips split in three places and when I smile the teeth are like a quilt or maybe like geology. I have brown bedroom eyes that are swollen half shut, and my nose, my goddam nose, now is like a little bit of history repeating, like I should let my hair grow in Saigon and lose my job on the twenty-second floor and make a bad investment on a horse called Crossroad Guitar. Screw heredity and screw history and most of all screw you I have opinions. I have views. I am going to sit in the share chair and tell you a story.
When Jack Price wakes up one morning, he is dismayed to discover that the old woman who lived in the apartment below his has been killed – dismayed because, as a high-tech drug dealer who believes he has no traceable presence in the real world, he has to wonder if someone meant the assassin-style murder as a message to him. He asks a few questions of the investigating officers, and next thing you know, a couple of goons in party masks are stomping on his kidneys. Jack asks a few more questions, and when he discovers that an international assassination squad has been hired to take him down, he goes all dark web and only surfaces to confront the assassins one-by-one in a game of get-them-before-they-get-you. Jack's schemes are cartoonishly convoluted, involve increasingly bizarre levels of gore and violence, and are embarrassingly entertaining.
Wall Street money is pirate money, loud and stupid and drunk, gets mugged in an alleyway and wakes up in the navy. My money is ninja money, strikes from the darkness, appears and disappears. Where do you keep your money Jack? Stuxnet baby. I keep my money in a digitally mobile distributed illegal wallet construct part-created by the NSA and stolen by @LuciferousYestergirl who is either a German anarchist or a Japanese-Nordic postdoc. When I want cash I push buttons and there is cash in a briefcase because I pay for it to happen. No one in the chain knows what they're handling or where it is going, just like my coke. The whole thing happens because water flows downhill. It happens the way an egg comes out of a chicken's vajayjay.
Well that image is gonna stay with me.
There are plenty of laughs along the way, and even though Jack is a nasty piece of work, you can't help but be on his side; this is an underdog, antihero tale of revenge – Pulp Fiction meets The Count of Monte Cristo – and it's a page-turner. As for its depth: Early on, Jack explains that he used to be a coffee importer (and apparently, the switch from coffee to coke didn't make a big difference in his professional world), until an acquaintance's death on 9/11 turned coffee “to ash” in his mouth. With a sporadic thread about the aftereffects of the trauma, and Jack explaining Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda's “understanding of theatrics” while planning some of his own, I thought that author Aiden Truhen (a pseudonym) might have had something important to say about where we find ourselves in a post-9/11 world – but other than the obvious effects it had on Jack's own psyche, there really isn't anything deeper or universal here. Still a fun read for people with a strong stomach – if this is the beginning of a series, sign me up. Three and a half stars that I am generously rounding up because pomelo cannon.
November 15, 2023
violent, irreverent, sarcastic, tongue in cheek plus watermelons and layers, many layers.
September 9, 2021
Just great, high octane, nonstop, kill bill by way of tom and jerry. A voice like a black hole, pulling you into its orbit. Stunning work. Price You Pay:Pattern Recognition::Snow Crash:Neuromancer? Only with less ancient Sumer, more cocaine.
May 9, 2019
I could not get into this book. I almost didn’t finish it, which is not something that I do. There was some humor, but I just couldn’t get past the author’s writing style. Thought I was going to enjoy this one, unfortunately I was wrong. I was chosen to read an advance copy of this book as part of Penguin's First to Read program. However, the opinions expressed in this review are 100% mine and mine alone.
September 9, 2018
This is a delightful, mad romp of a pulpy, comic crime novel. It helps if you don't mind or just enjoy bouts of extreme violence and twisted humor. If you don't, The Price You Pay probably won't work for you.
The plot concerns revenge, as the narrator, a cocaine dealer, retaliates after being badly beaten up by another criminal outfit. Said revenge kicks into high gear as Jack Price's enemies hire a group of celebrity assassins ridiculously named The Seven Demons, and our antihero must oppose them. Violence ensues and escalates with a great deal of creativity.
So this is a pulp thriller, verging into comic book territory at times. Lots of fun.
The novel's style might be off-putting at first, since it's written in a kind of light modernism. There are no quotation marks, so we weave in between Price's speech, his thoughts, descriptions, and the words of others. Many sentences lack commas, dashes, or semicolons, careening instead from idea to idea:
It's also really funny. Price is fond of caustic comments and satirical observations, when his mind doesn't wander, like this riff on Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced terrifying murderous instinctual and acquired skillset is indistinguishable from magic." (119) He races into cartoonish language for passion and effect:
Did I mention that Price is an antihero? He's certainly our protagonist and is often very entertaining, but he's also does awful things that go beyond revenge. For example, this murderous koan: "SHORT DISCUSSION WITH A LIMO GUY. He ends up in the trunk under a blanket." (113; caps in original) Or this pulling out the rug moment:
There are some serious notes to this bloody, amped up comedy. Price describes himself as a 21st century, postmodern businessman, and while it's never fully fleshed out, we do get some nice sketches of his uber-for-cocaine, air-bnb-for-ultraviolence operations.
Some bits don't work so well. The inciting incident, the murder of a woman in Price's apartment building without any connection to him, doesn't really work to get the antihero going. The actual villain of the piece is found and more or less forgotten while the Seven Demons war crashes along. Price's meditations on whether or not he's a sociopath or psychopath, eventually crowned by a discussion with one of the Demons, didn't do much. The book is supposed to be set in the American northeast, but there's barely any local color, suggesting the author doesn't know the place.
Ah, the author, "Aidan Truhen." Clearly a pseudo, and probably for a Brit or Australian. I've heard suggestions it could be Nick Harkaway, and that's believable.
So, overall? Strongly recommended if you are looking for a violent, comic romp and especially if you have a gory sense of humor.
(It's also very quotable. I kept reading it out loud to my wife, who thought the passages hysterical.
The plot concerns revenge, as the narrator, a cocaine dealer, retaliates after being badly beaten up by another criminal outfit. Said revenge kicks into high gear as Jack Price's enemies hire a group of celebrity assassins ridiculously named The Seven Demons, and our antihero must oppose them. Violence ensues and escalates with a great deal of creativity.
So this is a pulp thriller, verging into comic book territory at times. Lots of fun.
The novel's style might be off-putting at first, since it's written in a kind of light modernism. There are no quotation marks, so we weave in between Price's speech, his thoughts, descriptions, and the words of others. Many sentences lack commas, dashes, or semicolons, careening instead from idea to idea:
Someone is dead in my building. Someone is dead in my building right under my apartment. Someone is dead in my building right under my apartment in such a way that there are all the cops in the universe plus also Leo and that means they got dead violently and with malice in my building right under my apartment and you just have to take notice of that kind of happening. Cops look at me. I look at cops. I do not rubberneck. I wait to go ping bye bye. (6)But all of this works. It gives the text the feel of rapid forward motion, racing ahead too quickly for punctuation. It also feels like the transcript of a stand-up comedian. Try reading it out loud, and you'll find yourself calibrating pauses and emphases.
It's also really funny. Price is fond of caustic comments and satirical observations, when his mind doesn't wander, like this riff on Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced terrifying murderous instinctual and acquired skillset is indistinguishable from magic." (119) He races into cartoonish language for passion and effect:
Seven Demons. That’s hilarious. That would be ideal, utterly gratuitous. It’s like you see a mouse in your kitchen so you napalm your entire house and then you release a thousand hungry pythons into the ash. (61)Situations go sideways hilariously, like the confrontation with a dour security guard, both in terms of his film theory background and Price's gustatory response, or the argument over which movies should source criminal pseudonyms.
Did I mention that Price is an antihero? He's certainly our protagonist and is often very entertaining, but he's also does awful things that go beyond revenge. For example, this murderous koan: "SHORT DISCUSSION WITH A LIMO GUY. He ends up in the trunk under a blanket." (113; caps in original) Or this pulling out the rug moment:
So that’s how we are together in this critical moment, this crisis moment. We make jokes and we know that we’re crossing the Rubicon and what lies before will be different from what is past. We are brothers.
We hug. And then I shoot him in the face. Small caliber goes phht and one of his eyes goes red and that’s it. Sorry not sorry. (74).
There are some serious notes to this bloody, amped up comedy. Price describes himself as a 21st century, postmodern businessman, and while it's never fully fleshed out, we do get some nice sketches of his uber-for-cocaine, air-bnb-for-ultraviolence operations.
Some bits don't work so well. The inciting incident, the murder of a woman in Price's apartment building without any connection to him, doesn't really work to get the antihero going. The actual villain of the piece is found and more or less forgotten while the Seven Demons war crashes along. Price's meditations on whether or not he's a sociopath or psychopath, eventually crowned by a discussion with one of the Demons, didn't do much. The book is supposed to be set in the American northeast, but there's barely any local color, suggesting the author doesn't know the place.
Ah, the author, "Aidan Truhen." Clearly a pseudo, and probably for a Brit or Australian. I've heard suggestions it could be Nick Harkaway, and that's believable.
So, overall? Strongly recommended if you are looking for a violent, comic romp and especially if you have a gory sense of humor.
(It's also very quotable. I kept reading it out loud to my wife, who thought the passages hysterical.
He’s got a voice like the Swedish Chef if the Swedish Chef had had his throat cut one time by murder clowns.(214).
but you know what they say: when God closes a door he opens an electrosexed unethical medical-experimenting international murder queen window. (210))
November 3, 2020
Best book of the year, so far. Violent, profane, and crazy. It real is Tarantino or early Guy Ritchie on speed. Set in London, I want Ritchie to adapt it and direct the movie version.
June 2, 2018
Absolut empfehlenswertes Buch!
Wir haben hier einen Drogendealer, Jack Price, dessen Nachbarin scheinbar grundlos ermordet wird. Schnell erkennt Price, dass es um mehr geht. Das Killerkommando „Seven Demons“ ist auf ihn angesetzt. Und so nimmt die Story auf einmal ganz andere Ausmaße an.
Das Buch ist in der Ich-Perspektive geschrieben, wörtliche Rede erscheint im gesamten Buch ohne ein einziges Anführungsszeichen. Das macht das Lesen anfangs ziemlich anstrengend und bremst. Gleichzeitig lockert es den Schreibstil aber auch auf und im Verlauf gewöhnt man sich dran.
Jack ist ein super sympathischer Protagonist. Ein scheinbar anständiger Drogendealer, der keine Kinder beschäftigt und anständig bezahlt etc. Er hat seine Grundprinzipien.
Er flucht verdammt viel, eigentlich ununterbrochen und ist super witzig. Ich habe seeehr oft lauthals lachen müssen!!!
Im Grunde ist er aber dennoch ein Psychopath (oder ist er nun doch ein Soziopath?), er ist manipulativ, hochintelligent, geschickt, ehrlich, vorausschauend, humorvoll.. er ist einfach der perfekte Kriminelle.
Insgesamt eine Geschichte, die vor Sarkasmus und Brutalität nur so trieft. Ein Psychothriller der ganz anders ist, als die meisten anderen seiner Art.
Ein Buch, welches ich durchaus weiterempfehle, allerdings nur, wenn man mit solch einem Schreibstil zurecht kommt, daher auch ein Stern Abzug.
Und zum Abschluss einmal ganz laut und kräftig: LUCIIIILLEEE!! 😄
Wir haben hier einen Drogendealer, Jack Price, dessen Nachbarin scheinbar grundlos ermordet wird. Schnell erkennt Price, dass es um mehr geht. Das Killerkommando „Seven Demons“ ist auf ihn angesetzt. Und so nimmt die Story auf einmal ganz andere Ausmaße an.
Das Buch ist in der Ich-Perspektive geschrieben, wörtliche Rede erscheint im gesamten Buch ohne ein einziges Anführungsszeichen. Das macht das Lesen anfangs ziemlich anstrengend und bremst. Gleichzeitig lockert es den Schreibstil aber auch auf und im Verlauf gewöhnt man sich dran.
Jack ist ein super sympathischer Protagonist. Ein scheinbar anständiger Drogendealer, der keine Kinder beschäftigt und anständig bezahlt etc. Er hat seine Grundprinzipien.
Er flucht verdammt viel, eigentlich ununterbrochen und ist super witzig. Ich habe seeehr oft lauthals lachen müssen!!!
Im Grunde ist er aber dennoch ein Psychopath (oder ist er nun doch ein Soziopath?), er ist manipulativ, hochintelligent, geschickt, ehrlich, vorausschauend, humorvoll.. er ist einfach der perfekte Kriminelle.
Insgesamt eine Geschichte, die vor Sarkasmus und Brutalität nur so trieft. Ein Psychothriller der ganz anders ist, als die meisten anderen seiner Art.
Ein Buch, welches ich durchaus weiterempfehle, allerdings nur, wenn man mit solch einem Schreibstil zurecht kommt, daher auch ein Stern Abzug.
Und zum Abschluss einmal ganz laut und kräftig: LUCIIIILLEEE!! 😄
June 26, 2018
Jack Price isn't your average anti-hero. He's a drug dealer, sure, but very white collar. In fact, he has his own little empire, complete with his own brand of cocaine. It's next to impossible for the police to trace any crimes to him, so he lives a relatively peaceful life running his...business.
Until his neighbor, an elderly woman named Didi, is murdered.
Naturally, Jack being Jack, he asks too many questions and earns himself a beating. When he tries to hire his friend for help, he learns that 1) she can't help him because she's joined a group of assassins called the Seven Demons and 2) he's their next target. He's pissed, and instead of running like any sane person would do, he instead decides to take out the Seven Demons one by one and destroy the organization altogether. In extremely creative and gruesome ways.
Look, this book is one heck of a trip. If swearing isn't your thing, or if you're really big on proper grammar, this book may not be the one for you. The stylistic choice (I'm assuming that's what it is) of no quotation marks, run-on sentences, and almost no commas was definitely one I haven't seen before, and it took a bit to get used to it. It fit the tone of the novel very well, though- kind of quirky, kind of confusing, but incredibly interesting to read. Another thing- if you can't stomach violence, then you might want to skip this book. I'm serious- there's some nasty imagery in here.
However, if you can take violence and you don't mind the swearing and the odd style, then I say this book is absolutely worth a read. It's a great novel about terrible people, but you can't help but like them. It's sarcastic, irreverent, and you will find yourself laughing at things you definitely shouldn't be laughing at. You might even find yourself shouting "LUCILLE!" It's a bit open-ended, but leaves room for a possible sequel, but the ending is still satisfying and I look forward to reading more from this author.
Favorite Quotes (because I think I actually highlighted half the book):
"I am all kinds of reflective. I am deeply contemplative of the universe. I am fucking retrospect is what."
"LUCCCCIIIIILLLLLLLE."
"Smack smacksmack fuck you smacksmacksmack fucking miserable smack bastard."
"Money never sleeps, and I'm the Price you pay."
"We hug. And then I shoot him in the face. Small caliber goes phht and one of his eyes goes red and that's it. Sorry not sorry."
"So I'm just going to cry a little bit for lost possibilities. Because I'm secure in my masculinity and it's sad when someone you know gets murdered. You should cry. You should cry even if all you really talked about was what a really scary fucking place he most recently put his erection. You cry so I do. And then you get up and get on with your life because they may have left but the party is still going. I got things in motion, man. Cocktails to mix and playlists to cue.
I got bills due."
"Finland leaned on a fucking giant stuffed polar bear and picked its teeth with a bolt action and was like: Yeah Joe was there something you wanted to say? I'm sorry pencildick I can't hear you over the sound of the arctic wind."
"Chikusho fuck a duck."
(There were more, but it got kind of spoilery after that.)
This review, and others, can be found on my blog.
Until his neighbor, an elderly woman named Didi, is murdered.
Naturally, Jack being Jack, he asks too many questions and earns himself a beating. When he tries to hire his friend for help, he learns that 1) she can't help him because she's joined a group of assassins called the Seven Demons and 2) he's their next target. He's pissed, and instead of running like any sane person would do, he instead decides to take out the Seven Demons one by one and destroy the organization altogether. In extremely creative and gruesome ways.
Look, this book is one heck of a trip. If swearing isn't your thing, or if you're really big on proper grammar, this book may not be the one for you. The stylistic choice (I'm assuming that's what it is) of no quotation marks, run-on sentences, and almost no commas was definitely one I haven't seen before, and it took a bit to get used to it. It fit the tone of the novel very well, though- kind of quirky, kind of confusing, but incredibly interesting to read. Another thing- if you can't stomach violence, then you might want to skip this book. I'm serious- there's some nasty imagery in here.
However, if you can take violence and you don't mind the swearing and the odd style, then I say this book is absolutely worth a read. It's a great novel about terrible people, but you can't help but like them. It's sarcastic, irreverent, and you will find yourself laughing at things you definitely shouldn't be laughing at. You might even find yourself shouting "LUCILLE!" It's a bit open-ended, but leaves room for a possible sequel, but the ending is still satisfying and I look forward to reading more from this author.
Favorite Quotes (because I think I actually highlighted half the book):
"I am all kinds of reflective. I am deeply contemplative of the universe. I am fucking retrospect is what."
"LUCCCCIIIIILLLLLLLE."
"Smack smacksmack fuck you smacksmacksmack fucking miserable smack bastard."
"Money never sleeps, and I'm the Price you pay."
"We hug. And then I shoot him in the face. Small caliber goes phht and one of his eyes goes red and that's it. Sorry not sorry."
"So I'm just going to cry a little bit for lost possibilities. Because I'm secure in my masculinity and it's sad when someone you know gets murdered. You should cry. You should cry even if all you really talked about was what a really scary fucking place he most recently put his erection. You cry so I do. And then you get up and get on with your life because they may have left but the party is still going. I got things in motion, man. Cocktails to mix and playlists to cue.
I got bills due."
"Finland leaned on a fucking giant stuffed polar bear and picked its teeth with a bolt action and was like: Yeah Joe was there something you wanted to say? I'm sorry pencildick I can't hear you over the sound of the arctic wind."
"Chikusho fuck a duck."
(There were more, but it got kind of spoilery after that.)
This review, and others, can be found on my blog.
June 25, 2018
John Wick walks into Shits & Shingles Gentlemen's Club and sidles up to Quentin Tarantino, who’s sucking down Golden Grain by the beer stein at the diesel-and-snot-crusted bar. They fuck each other all the hell up, without lube, taking turns bending each other over stools, throwing down on the whisky-and-piss soaked floor, against the bullet-ridden walls, breaking window panes with their cocks, taking glass splinters up their asses and slapping balls as they bang. One of them (I’m not sure which) gets knocked up and births the sickest, most insane, brilliant son of a bitch to ever live. They name baby THE PRICE YOU PAY and leave it on the sweat-and-ass-streaked bar as payment for their drinks.
Hands up, who wants to babysit?
🤚🏽🤚🏽🤚🏽🤚🏽🤚🏽
*Bouncing on balls of feet and flailing arms*
Fucking hell, pick me! For fuck’s sake, pick me!
Ahem.
So, I’m not sure if you worked it out, but I loved this book. Like, I want to impale it with a foot-long dagger and pin it to my pillow so it will sleep beside me every night and never leave me.
Jack Price is the (anti-)hero of our story. He deals in cocaine, but he’s a nice coke dealer who prefers to take a hands-off approach to his business:
Jack keeps to himself, has few friends, doesn’t make trouble. Then the old bitch who lives below his penthouse turns up executed. And then some dudes from the Seven Demons hit squad come and fuck him up real bad:
And that’s when Jack gets pissed.
Jack unleashes his vengeance on the Seven Demons in much the same way a fire-breathing dragon might wipe the ass of a fledgling turtle suffering from anal leakage as it breaks for the sea amid an LSD-powered rave on the beach.
Actual explosives may be methods of mayhem that leave holes in people and places the story, but there are also word bombs galore (this is a good thing, trust me), and they’re fucking delicacies of the highest order. I had to stop, bend down, and smell the aromas so many times, I lost track. Lucky for me, I abused the highlight function on my reader to the point where it quit begging me for mercy and just jizzed itself to death. Pretty much the entire book is now piss-colored yellow, ejaculated from someone who pulled an all-nighter with a barrel of plutonium-238 for a drinking buddy and peed it out on a swath of dried electronic ink.
This book was so mind-blowingly awesome that I’m afraid to pick up another book. Nothing compares to the braingasms I have endured over the last few days, and I fear nothing else ever will. I loved it so much, I'm breaking my self-imposed NO STARS rule and giving it 5-stars. Don't believe me? Go look at the rest of the books I've read. This is the only one I've rated. I loved it THAT much.
Fair warning—and this is my only (minor) beef with the story: the author doesn’t use quotation marks a single time in the entire book. He seems a bit allergic to commas and other punctuation as well. If you’re a grammar freak like me, hold your nose and jump in with the expectation that the water will be very dirty until you get used to Truhen’s unique stylistic choices. Normally, something like this will put me off a book from the get-go, but in this instance, it works. Just takes some getting used to.
Please, for the love of all that is holy, PLEASE, Mr. Truhen, invite Quentin and John over for tea with the expectation that once all pinkie fingers have been lowered, they’ll fuck each other up again and have another love child for me to cuddle and dangle out of a 50-story window. The door is wide open. This can—and should—totally happen. The sooner, the better, Mr. Truhen. Get those horny fuckers in a room stat!
THE PRICE YOU PAY is currently sitting pretty at the top of my 2018 Reads List, waiting for some asshole to come and (try to) knock it off its perch.
Authors, I triple-dick-dare you.
I recommend this book to non-pussies who enjoy ultra-violence, absolutely SICK (I mean that in both of the good ways) writing, and heads lobbed as weapons.
Hands up, who wants to babysit?
🤚🏽🤚🏽🤚🏽🤚🏽🤚🏽
*Bouncing on balls of feet and flailing arms*
Fucking hell, pick me! For fuck’s sake, pick me!
Ahem.
So, I’m not sure if you worked it out, but I loved this book. Like, I want to impale it with a foot-long dagger and pin it to my pillow so it will sleep beside me every night and never leave me.
Jack Price is the (anti-)hero of our story. He deals in cocaine, but he’s a nice coke dealer who prefers to take a hands-off approach to his business:
“I am Uber for illegal drugs. I have everyone from executives in Beemers to old codgers with Z frames running cocaine for me.”
Jack keeps to himself, has few friends, doesn’t make trouble. Then the old bitch who lives below his penthouse turns up executed. And then some dudes from the Seven Demons hit squad come and fuck him up real bad:
“What you have here is basically indestructible: an idea of a gang of seven that restores its losses and never stops. It is defined by a complete lack of compunction, by being more fucking terrifying than the gold standard of contemporary fucking terrifyingness.”
And that’s when Jack gets pissed.
Jack unleashes his vengeance on the Seven Demons in much the same way a fire-breathing dragon might wipe the ass of a fledgling turtle suffering from anal leakage as it breaks for the sea amid an LSD-powered rave on the beach.
Actual explosives may be methods of mayhem that leave holes in people and places the story, but there are also word bombs galore (this is a good thing, trust me), and they’re fucking delicacies of the highest order. I had to stop, bend down, and smell the aromas so many times, I lost track. Lucky for me, I abused the highlight function on my reader to the point where it quit begging me for mercy and just jizzed itself to death. Pretty much the entire book is now piss-colored yellow, ejaculated from someone who pulled an all-nighter with a barrel of plutonium-238 for a drinking buddy and peed it out on a swath of dried electronic ink.
This book was so mind-blowingly awesome that I’m afraid to pick up another book. Nothing compares to the braingasms I have endured over the last few days, and I fear nothing else ever will. I loved it so much, I'm breaking my self-imposed NO STARS rule and giving it 5-stars. Don't believe me? Go look at the rest of the books I've read. This is the only one I've rated. I loved it THAT much.
Fair warning—and this is my only (minor) beef with the story: the author doesn’t use quotation marks a single time in the entire book. He seems a bit allergic to commas and other punctuation as well. If you’re a grammar freak like me, hold your nose and jump in with the expectation that the water will be very dirty until you get used to Truhen’s unique stylistic choices. Normally, something like this will put me off a book from the get-go, but in this instance, it works. Just takes some getting used to.
Please, for the love of all that is holy, PLEASE, Mr. Truhen, invite Quentin and John over for tea with the expectation that once all pinkie fingers have been lowered, they’ll fuck each other up again and have another love child for me to cuddle and dangle out of a 50-story window. The door is wide open. This can—and should—totally happen. The sooner, the better, Mr. Truhen. Get those horny fuckers in a room stat!
THE PRICE YOU PAY is currently sitting pretty at the top of my 2018 Reads List, waiting for some asshole to come and (try to) knock it off its perch.
Authors, I triple-dick-dare you.
I recommend this book to non-pussies who enjoy ultra-violence, absolutely SICK (I mean that in both of the good ways) writing, and heads lobbed as weapons.
July 29, 2018
I read this all night and finished it this morning. What a violent but witty funny ride. The writing style is unique and if it doesnt grab you by the first 30 pages I'd probably put it down. It can be quite weird at times. The humour is amazing, I haven't laughed like that for a long time. Some of the action scenes are super violent. Ears being bitten off, heads exploding through fruit!! Sometimes the pacing didnt take off and I think that held it back for me from being a 5 star novel. I got this weird pulp fiction get shorty vibe with a jg ballard style novel. Reccomend this for people who like their crime dark twisted funny and and ultra violent.
June 5, 2018
Tja, es gibt so Bücher, die werden überall gelobt. Nur hier bei mir nicht. Mich hat "Fuck you very much" sehr enttäuscht, vielleicht auch, weil die Erwartungen aufgrund der tollen Aufmachung zu hoch angesetzt waren.
Jack Price ist ein New Yorker Drogendealer. Als die Frau unter seinem Stockwerk getötet wird, stellt er Fragen. Blöd gelaufen für Price, denn nun gerät er ins Visier der Seven Demons und die sind Auftragskiller und Price ihr Ziel.
Mit einem sehr eigenen gangstermäßig rauen und fluchenden Erzählstil verfolgt der Leser an der Seite von Price diese Jagd-Gejagter-Story in der Unterwelt. Auch wenn die Sprache derb, Price selbst sarkastisch rüberkommt, ist das das große Plus des Buches.
Nur leider sind die Verbindungen im Plot sehr schwach, und von Glaubwürdigkeit keine Spur. Price kämpft gegen eine scheinbar übermächtige Bande und das erinnert dann doch zu viel an Superman gegen den Rest der Welt. Und auch die Überspitzungen (z. B. elektrisierender Sex) sind für mich des vermeintlich Guten zu viel.
Für mich eine schöne Idee, aber mehr auch nicht. Schade.
Jack Price ist ein New Yorker Drogendealer. Als die Frau unter seinem Stockwerk getötet wird, stellt er Fragen. Blöd gelaufen für Price, denn nun gerät er ins Visier der Seven Demons und die sind Auftragskiller und Price ihr Ziel.
Mit einem sehr eigenen gangstermäßig rauen und fluchenden Erzählstil verfolgt der Leser an der Seite von Price diese Jagd-Gejagter-Story in der Unterwelt. Auch wenn die Sprache derb, Price selbst sarkastisch rüberkommt, ist das das große Plus des Buches.
Nur leider sind die Verbindungen im Plot sehr schwach, und von Glaubwürdigkeit keine Spur. Price kämpft gegen eine scheinbar übermächtige Bande und das erinnert dann doch zu viel an Superman gegen den Rest der Welt. Und auch die Überspitzungen (z. B. elektrisierender Sex) sind für mich des vermeintlich Guten zu viel.
Für mich eine schöne Idee, aber mehr auch nicht. Schade.
September 22, 2018
This book is the book baby of You Better Call Saul the tv show and Carl Hiaasen. A paternity test could easily name Donald Ray Pollock as the father and I would believe it
You would almost have to love all three parents mentioned above to like this book. I personally only lasted 2 episodes in on Saul. So there you go.
The book is going to find and have its readers. It is well done in whatever it was trying to do. I just don’t know what that was exactly. There were parts where I read several pages and comprehended very little.
I would read another by this author. He referenced the 4 hundred children and the crops in the field song and made a wise crack about sisters that had me laughing out loud. 4 stars for the laugh out loud moments.
You would almost have to love all three parents mentioned above to like this book. I personally only lasted 2 episodes in on Saul. So there you go.
The book is going to find and have its readers. It is well done in whatever it was trying to do. I just don’t know what that was exactly. There were parts where I read several pages and comprehended very little.
I would read another by this author. He referenced the 4 hundred children and the crops in the field song and made a wise crack about sisters that had me laughing out loud. 4 stars for the laugh out loud moments.
July 17, 2018
I was looking forward to this book. I was ready for the snarkiness. There was some in the beginning mixed with a bit of humor. However, there was not enough. This book for me suffered also from my lack of connection with the characters or the story. Without the connection, I struggled to find anything interesting about the story. In fact, the use of the "f" bomb was about the only thing that kept this book somewhat interesting. I tried and tried to stick with this book but after getting almost to the half way mark with little improvement, I could not read any further.
August 13, 2018
When a local businessman discovers his unpleasant neighbor (a nosy mean spirited old woman) has been has been murdered, he looks into it, drawing the attention of a shadowy cabal of elite assassins. Unfortunately for the shadowy cabal, the businessman is a nihilistic psychopath. "The Price You Pay" is a gleefully over the top revenge fantasy with preposterous ultra violence and a narrator whose voice is a cross between Phillip Larkin and a Spiderman comic.
July 1, 2020
>>> Gewalttätig, zynisch und humorvoll. Eine tempo- und wortreiche Story aus der Welt der Drogenszene. <<<
Was meint ihr, muss eurer Meinung nach, ein Thriller/Krimi prinzipiell immer grausam und blutig sein? Ist eurer Meinung nach purer Gewalt ein entscheidender Faktor für eine gute Geschichte? Sicherlich habt ihr mitbekommen, dass ich in Kooperation mit dem Ronin Hörverlag „Fuck you very much“ von Aidan Truhen gehört habe. Heute möchte ich euch einmal meine Rezension mit meinem abschließenden Fazit mitgeben. Herzlichen Dank an den Ronin Hörverlag für das tolle Paket zum Hörbuch.
Bevor ich beginne, möchte ich euch gerne auf ein paar Details in diesem Buch aufmerksam machen. Sicherlich erwartet hier jeder ein spannender, gewaltiger und actiongeladener Thriller, dennoch ist es interessant zu sehen, wie mit wenigen typischen Thriller Elementen, sei es Blut, explizite Gewaltdarstellung und unnötig in die Länge gezogenen Auseinandersetzungen bzw. Kampfszenen, eine unfassbar tolle, spannungs- und dialogbasierte Story mit einer plausiblen, nachvollziehbaren Handlung. Natürlich gibt es auch schon etwas Gewalt, doch dazu dann im Buch mehr.
Zunächst einmal schauen wir uns den Protagonisten genauer an. Jack Price, ein Drogenhändler, der beste weit und breit und einer der coolsten Protagonisten überhaupt. Seine sehr clevere, ruhige Art ist sehr bewundernswert. Er ist sarkastisch, zynisch, ernst und doch auf eine coole Art und Weiße witzig. Seine gewiefte Art und seine besonderen Charakterzüge machen die gesamte Story zu einem tollen Erlebnis und geben somit dem Protagonisten und auch der gesamten Handlung die hundertprozentige Authentizität und Glaubwürdigkeit.
Sehr gut gelungen ist dem Autor der Erzähl- und Schreibstil. Nicht unbedingt aufgrund der Details die er im Buch eingebaut hat, sondern vielmehr die besonderen Dialoge und die Art und Weise, wie sich zum Beispiel Protagonisten artikulieren. Selbstverständlich muss man hier nicht erwähnen, dass es sich um eine abgefuckte Story in der Drogenszene handelt :D Dennoch finde ich macht die Qualität der Dialoge und auch der Monologe, die Qualität der gesamten Geschichte aus.
Abschließend kann ich nur noch vermerken, ein absolut tolles Lese/Hörerlebnis mit einer gelungenen Story und coolen Protagonist. Wer nicht nur brutal, blutig und gewalttätig möchte, findet ihr ganz bestimmt noch vieles mehr. Absolute Kaufempfehlung mit 5 von 5 Sternen.
Was meint ihr, muss eurer Meinung nach, ein Thriller/Krimi prinzipiell immer grausam und blutig sein? Ist eurer Meinung nach purer Gewalt ein entscheidender Faktor für eine gute Geschichte? Sicherlich habt ihr mitbekommen, dass ich in Kooperation mit dem Ronin Hörverlag „Fuck you very much“ von Aidan Truhen gehört habe. Heute möchte ich euch einmal meine Rezension mit meinem abschließenden Fazit mitgeben. Herzlichen Dank an den Ronin Hörverlag für das tolle Paket zum Hörbuch.
Bevor ich beginne, möchte ich euch gerne auf ein paar Details in diesem Buch aufmerksam machen. Sicherlich erwartet hier jeder ein spannender, gewaltiger und actiongeladener Thriller, dennoch ist es interessant zu sehen, wie mit wenigen typischen Thriller Elementen, sei es Blut, explizite Gewaltdarstellung und unnötig in die Länge gezogenen Auseinandersetzungen bzw. Kampfszenen, eine unfassbar tolle, spannungs- und dialogbasierte Story mit einer plausiblen, nachvollziehbaren Handlung. Natürlich gibt es auch schon etwas Gewalt, doch dazu dann im Buch mehr.
Zunächst einmal schauen wir uns den Protagonisten genauer an. Jack Price, ein Drogenhändler, der beste weit und breit und einer der coolsten Protagonisten überhaupt. Seine sehr clevere, ruhige Art ist sehr bewundernswert. Er ist sarkastisch, zynisch, ernst und doch auf eine coole Art und Weiße witzig. Seine gewiefte Art und seine besonderen Charakterzüge machen die gesamte Story zu einem tollen Erlebnis und geben somit dem Protagonisten und auch der gesamten Handlung die hundertprozentige Authentizität und Glaubwürdigkeit.
Sehr gut gelungen ist dem Autor der Erzähl- und Schreibstil. Nicht unbedingt aufgrund der Details die er im Buch eingebaut hat, sondern vielmehr die besonderen Dialoge und die Art und Weise, wie sich zum Beispiel Protagonisten artikulieren. Selbstverständlich muss man hier nicht erwähnen, dass es sich um eine abgefuckte Story in der Drogenszene handelt :D Dennoch finde ich macht die Qualität der Dialoge und auch der Monologe, die Qualität der gesamten Geschichte aus.
Abschließend kann ich nur noch vermerken, ein absolut tolles Lese/Hörerlebnis mit einer gelungenen Story und coolen Protagonist. Wer nicht nur brutal, blutig und gewalttätig möchte, findet ihr ganz bestimmt noch vieles mehr. Absolute Kaufempfehlung mit 5 von 5 Sternen.
January 30, 2023
At page 12 I summarized this to my wife as "This is like if Cormac McCarthy and Guy Ritchie got high and wrote a book together." At the end of the book, I think this still holds. It's got the grimness of Cormac McCarthy while also having Guy Ritchie's madcap action and black comedy.
There were a few parts where it becomes increasingly clear that our narrator uses the world for his own ends in a psychopathic way and even though later in the book, a character explicitly says our narrator is not a psychopath, I don't really buy it. He's frequently needlessly cruel and treats others as tools which makes him hard to root for at times.
That being said, this is actually a Nick Harkaway book, so I spent a lot of it at least almost smiling, if not more because it's full of absurd comedy.
There were a few parts where it becomes increasingly clear that our narrator uses the world for his own ends in a psychopathic way and even though later in the book, a character explicitly says our narrator is not a psychopath, I don't really buy it. He's frequently needlessly cruel and treats others as tools which makes him hard to root for at times.
That being said, this is actually a Nick Harkaway book, so I spent a lot of it at least almost smiling, if not more because it's full of absurd comedy.
June 3, 2024
What starts a little difficult to read due to the cormac Mccarthy esque aversion to punctuation and the slightly humdrum stream of consciousness style.
Unfolds into and unhinged criminal tale of extreme acts of comical violence.
Like a terrifyingly beleiveable super villian going about the business of demonstrating that was a bad idea.
Foul mouthed vulgarity, shockingly inventive acts of violence and some genuinely fun insights turned this from a curio to a genuinely very fun book.
Unfolds into and unhinged criminal tale of extreme acts of comical violence.
Like a terrifyingly beleiveable super villian going about the business of demonstrating that was a bad idea.
Foul mouthed vulgarity, shockingly inventive acts of violence and some genuinely fun insights turned this from a curio to a genuinely very fun book.
December 14, 2023
Absolutely batshit crazy. I haven’t read a book like this in a while. So much fun, I had a big smile on my face for a while after I closed the book.
The story is filled with action, violence, moral ambiguity, and sex but is also intelligent and funny. If you are looking for something thoughtful, tender, and sensitive, maybe try a different book.
The star attraction is the first-person narration by Jack Price. The author tells the story in his stylized voice which also includes some unique punctuation choices. This made it a bit challenging to read at times.
The unreliable narrator thing is used to good effect, misleading the reader into thinking things have gone one way, and then surprising us with the real events. This reflects the way Price is dealing with his adversaries and therefore reinforces the unpredictable nature of the main character.
The story is filled with action, violence, moral ambiguity, and sex but is also intelligent and funny. If you are looking for something thoughtful, tender, and sensitive, maybe try a different book.
The star attraction is the first-person narration by Jack Price. The author tells the story in his stylized voice which also includes some unique punctuation choices. This made it a bit challenging to read at times.
The unreliable narrator thing is used to good effect, misleading the reader into thinking things have gone one way, and then surprising us with the real events. This reflects the way Price is dealing with his adversaries and therefore reinforces the unpredictable nature of the main character.
November 28, 2018
Allez tous vous faire foutre... Mais non, ce n'est pas à vous que je parle, vous, je vous aime bien.
Mais combien de fois n'a-t-on pas proféré cette phrase en la hurlant ou en la susurrant doucement, dans ses dents, pour ne pas que les principaux concernés l'entendent ?
J'avoue que même parfois, je la rend encore plus trash et que je souhaite que les autres aillent se faire... enfin, vous voyez quoi !
Anybref, ici, on peut dire que le 4ème de couverture ne ment pas : ce roman n'est pas pour votre gentille mamy, sauf si c'est mamie Luger...
Il est vrai que lire ce roman dans le métro peut générer des airs interrogateurs, réprobateurs ou des sourires sur les faces des gens assis face à vous à cause du titre et de la photo de couverture (qui confirme le tout et est même compréhensible pour tout qui posera ses yeux dessus).
Mais moi, une couverture aussi explicite et un titre aussi attirant, je ne pouvais que demander à Sonatine, via la plate-forme NetGalley, à le découvrir. Et ils ont accepté, pour mon plus grand plaisir. Merci à eux.
Jack Price, le personnage principal, est cynique à mourir, caustique, sarcastique, c'est un salaud de dealer et pourtant, bizarrement, on s'attache très vite à lui et on suit avec plaisir ses péripéties, ses réflexions sur le monde, son business dans le monde de la blanche, avec un sourire béat affiché sur notre petite gueule de lecteur comblé.
Bon, je vais tout de même mettre en garde les lecteurs qui aiment les romans structurés car ils risquent de tiquer devant la manière dont il est écrit...
Comment dire ? C'est un peu comme si l'auteur/narrateur avait oublié de soigner sa mise en page et sa manière d'écrire, confiant le tout à l'éditeur qui aurait oublié de corriger la manière dont le personnage principal (et les autres) s'expriment.
J'avoue que moi qui voue un culte immodéré aux virgules, aux tirets cadratins ainsi qu'aux guillemets, j'en ai été pour mes frais, ceux-ci étant les grands absents de ce roman.
Habituellement, chez moi, ce genre de présentation, ça ne passe pas (ou difficilement) car je trouve que ça brouillonne le texte et il faut que je m'accroche pour progresser dans la lecture.
Mais ici, passé les premiers étonnements, j'ai poursuivi ma lecture sans soucis et sans faire valser le roman dans la pièce tant cette mise en page lui allait comme un gant.
L'effet addictif du Jack Price, sans doute, qui agit comme une sorte de vaseline et fait passer le tout sans anicroche.
Par contre, évitez de décrocher lors d'un dialogue car vous risqueriez de ne plus savoir qui dit quoi, mais pas de panique, une petite remontée dans la page vous remettra sur les rails et vous pourrez filer à toute berzingue.
En tout cas, le récit était jouissif, déjanté, brut de décoffrage, couillu mais épilé à la cire chaude (seuls les lecteurs du roman comprendront) et bourré d'action, de situations burlesques, à la limite de l'infaisabilité, mais il ne faut pas lire ce roman pour son côté réaliste, sinon vous risquez de ne pas y trouver votre compte et de vous demander dans quel monde de taré vous avez chu.
Conseil d'ami : laissez-vous emportez par Jack Price, suivez ses péripéties, ses digressions sur un peu tous les sujets, appréciez son humour parfois un peu limite, ses actions totalement illicites et à la limite de l'horreur, amusez-vous à l'imaginer cavaler un peu partout avec les tueurs lancés à ses trousses et savourez la manière dont il gère tout ça et s'en tire haut la main.
Assurément, le genre de roman avec lequel ça passera ou ça cassera. Il ne sera pas le roman de l'année et il finira avec l'étiquette de roman déjanté qui m'a fait passer un moment de lecture inoubliable tant il était barré, un peu à la manière d'un "Livre sans nom", le côté fantastique en moins.
Pour moi, il est passé mieux qu'une lettre à la poste et j'ai toujours un sourire débile affiché sur ma trogne.
On dit quoi ? On dit "Merci Jack Price et Sonatine" !
PS : à offrir à des gens qui ont le sens de l'humour et qui ne prendront pas le titre pour argent comptant... Je suis pour la paix dans les familles...
Mais combien de fois n'a-t-on pas proféré cette phrase en la hurlant ou en la susurrant doucement, dans ses dents, pour ne pas que les principaux concernés l'entendent ?
J'avoue que même parfois, je la rend encore plus trash et que je souhaite que les autres aillent se faire... enfin, vous voyez quoi !
Anybref, ici, on peut dire que le 4ème de couverture ne ment pas : ce roman n'est pas pour votre gentille mamy, sauf si c'est mamie Luger...
Il est vrai que lire ce roman dans le métro peut générer des airs interrogateurs, réprobateurs ou des sourires sur les faces des gens assis face à vous à cause du titre et de la photo de couverture (qui confirme le tout et est même compréhensible pour tout qui posera ses yeux dessus).
Mais moi, une couverture aussi explicite et un titre aussi attirant, je ne pouvais que demander à Sonatine, via la plate-forme NetGalley, à le découvrir. Et ils ont accepté, pour mon plus grand plaisir. Merci à eux.
Jack Price, le personnage principal, est cynique à mourir, caustique, sarcastique, c'est un salaud de dealer et pourtant, bizarrement, on s'attache très vite à lui et on suit avec plaisir ses péripéties, ses réflexions sur le monde, son business dans le monde de la blanche, avec un sourire béat affiché sur notre petite gueule de lecteur comblé.
Bon, je vais tout de même mettre en garde les lecteurs qui aiment les romans structurés car ils risquent de tiquer devant la manière dont il est écrit...
Comment dire ? C'est un peu comme si l'auteur/narrateur avait oublié de soigner sa mise en page et sa manière d'écrire, confiant le tout à l'éditeur qui aurait oublié de corriger la manière dont le personnage principal (et les autres) s'expriment.
J'avoue que moi qui voue un culte immodéré aux virgules, aux tirets cadratins ainsi qu'aux guillemets, j'en ai été pour mes frais, ceux-ci étant les grands absents de ce roman.
Habituellement, chez moi, ce genre de présentation, ça ne passe pas (ou difficilement) car je trouve que ça brouillonne le texte et il faut que je m'accroche pour progresser dans la lecture.
Mais ici, passé les premiers étonnements, j'ai poursuivi ma lecture sans soucis et sans faire valser le roman dans la pièce tant cette mise en page lui allait comme un gant.
L'effet addictif du Jack Price, sans doute, qui agit comme une sorte de vaseline et fait passer le tout sans anicroche.
Par contre, évitez de décrocher lors d'un dialogue car vous risqueriez de ne plus savoir qui dit quoi, mais pas de panique, une petite remontée dans la page vous remettra sur les rails et vous pourrez filer à toute berzingue.
En tout cas, le récit était jouissif, déjanté, brut de décoffrage, couillu mais épilé à la cire chaude (seuls les lecteurs du roman comprendront) et bourré d'action, de situations burlesques, à la limite de l'infaisabilité, mais il ne faut pas lire ce roman pour son côté réaliste, sinon vous risquez de ne pas y trouver votre compte et de vous demander dans quel monde de taré vous avez chu.
Conseil d'ami : laissez-vous emportez par Jack Price, suivez ses péripéties, ses digressions sur un peu tous les sujets, appréciez son humour parfois un peu limite, ses actions totalement illicites et à la limite de l'horreur, amusez-vous à l'imaginer cavaler un peu partout avec les tueurs lancés à ses trousses et savourez la manière dont il gère tout ça et s'en tire haut la main.
Assurément, le genre de roman avec lequel ça passera ou ça cassera. Il ne sera pas le roman de l'année et il finira avec l'étiquette de roman déjanté qui m'a fait passer un moment de lecture inoubliable tant il était barré, un peu à la manière d'un "Livre sans nom", le côté fantastique en moins.
Pour moi, il est passé mieux qu'une lettre à la poste et j'ai toujours un sourire débile affiché sur ma trogne.
On dit quoi ? On dit "Merci Jack Price et Sonatine" !
PS : à offrir à des gens qui ont le sens de l'humour et qui ne prendront pas le titre pour argent comptant... Je suis pour la paix dans les familles...
January 28, 2019
Wholly disagreeable and fairly despicable, this work from the pseudonymous Truhen is at least a quick read. The novel's simplistic, wan tale of revenge needs plenty of window-dressing, so the author provides absurd moments of inventive violence to stir the reader. Narrated by the psychopathic Jack Price, who drops plenty of pop cultural references: Beyonce, the Kardashians, One Direction, Miley Cyrus, Chris Hemsworth, etc. in a hip, with-it Tarantino fashion, and whose vocabulary consists of one word - and it is not 'frigging'. This reads like a Tim Dorsey crime novel featuring his insane serial killer Serge A. Storms (who is always concocting unique means to deal with people who get on his nerves). While Serge is a lovable nutcase though, Price is just vile. Near the end he name-drops Bergman and Tarkovsky into this swill -I don't think so.
September 23, 2018
I discovered this book in one of those ‘great books for the summer/beach’ lists and decided to check it out. The story seemed intriguing and I love a good anti-hero. Alas, Jack Price didn’t measure up. He’s a drug-dealer, the Amazon of dealers, when a neighbor’s murder puts him in the crosshairs of the Seven Demons. Aidan Truhen’s writing style is like being in the head of a cocaine user—frantic, fragmented, and ultimately exhausting. I see so many have enjoyed this book but I found the writing to be poor, the story just becomes more and more implausible and flimsy, and I just didn’t care about any of it. Don’t waste your time—there are terrific thrillers out there. This isn’t one of them.
June 29, 2021
I read the second book (Seven Demons) first, in hindsight not my brightest idea. (To be honest, I knew it at the time, but the second book had an audio version and this one didn't, so here we are)
Pure unadulterated fun to read. Completely over the top violence and crime, narrated by a one of kind high functioning sociopath (our hero!), who starts out as a big time behind the scenes cocaine dealer for the affluent and builds his way up to the biggest bad.
Pure unadulterated fun to read. Completely over the top violence and crime, narrated by a one of kind high functioning sociopath (our hero!), who starts out as a big time behind the scenes cocaine dealer for the affluent and builds his way up to the biggest bad.
June 5, 2022
I’ve at least liked everything by Harkaway I’ve read, but always missed the mad energy of his debut, GONE AWAY WORLD, in his later, more refined works.
Well, this is all mad energy and little else, and probably couldn’t have sustained it’s madcap pave another 30 pages, but damn if this wasn’t an absolute blast of off-color slapstick humor.
( I actually harbor the theory this started out as Looney Tunes fanfic before it turned into a gangster story)
Well, this is all mad energy and little else, and probably couldn’t have sustained it’s madcap pave another 30 pages, but damn if this wasn’t an absolute blast of off-color slapstick humor.
( I actually harbor the theory this started out as Looney Tunes fanfic before it turned into a gangster story)
June 15, 2018
*I received a free copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*
Definitely one of the most ridiculously hilarious over the top books I've read in ages. But Jack Price is by far one of the most interesting characters I've read this year.
Not only is he funny but he makes for an interesting narrator.
I do hope there's a sequel in the works..
Definitely one of the most ridiculously hilarious over the top books I've read in ages. But Jack Price is by far one of the most interesting characters I've read this year.
Not only is he funny but he makes for an interesting narrator.
I do hope there's a sequel in the works..
May 5, 2018
Insane but really entertaining
February 19, 2024
This feels like it was written by an edgy 14 year old
July 31, 2018
Reading this novel was truly an experience. The protagonist of The Price You Pay has a voice like no character I can think of other than really Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. But while that novel had a tendency to get bogged down in minutiae, this novel is completely propulsive and engrossing.
Some readers I'm sure will wince at some of the violence, pitch black humor, and "rooting" for a drug-dealing sociopath, but for me it all worked perfectly. To truly enjoy this, you must suspend disbelief and let Aidan Truhen (supposedly actually Nick Harkaway) take you wherever he wants. You won't regret it.
Some readers I'm sure will wince at some of the violence, pitch black humor, and "rooting" for a drug-dealing sociopath, but for me it all worked perfectly. To truly enjoy this, you must suspend disbelief and let Aidan Truhen (supposedly actually Nick Harkaway) take you wherever he wants. You won't regret it.
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