The Heartbreak Lounge

Harry Rane #2

by Wallace Stroby

Ex-state trooper Harry Rane, who first appeared in Wallace Stroby's brilliant debut novel, The Barbed-Wire Kiss , is at loose ends. Doing some investigative work for a friend's firm just to keep himself busy, Harry meets Nikki Ellis, a woman desperate for help. Her ex, Johnny Harrow, was just released from prison after a seven-year stretch for attempted murder. Nikki hasn't spoken to him since he went down, but she knows what he's capable of, and that he'll be looking for her-and for the baby she put up for adoption after Johnny went away. She knows it's up to her to protect the child once again. And she's afraid.

As Harry finds out, she should be. Johnny is headed home to New Jersey to settle up with anyone who did him wrong while he was gone, including Nikki and his former employer, mobster Joey Alea. Then he's planning to find his son and start a new life.

Johnny starts at the Heartbreak Lounge, where Nikki was a dancer when she first met Johnny, and works his way through their old life, leaving a trail of blood and fear in his wake. Only Harry might be tough enough-or reckless enough-to help her. What happens next shows why the searing talent and explosive writing evident in The Barbed-Wire Kiss was only the beginning, and why Wallace Stroby is destined to be one of the finest crime writers of a generation.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Wallace Stroby is an award-winning journalist and the author of the novels
Cold Shot to the Heart, Gone 'Til November, The Heartbreak Lounge and The Barbed-Wire Kiss..

A Long Branch, N.J., native, he's a lifelong resident of the Jersey Shore. "The Barbed-Wire Kiss," which The Washington Post called "a scorching first novel ...full of attention to character and memory and, even more, to the neighborhoods of New Jersey," was a finalist for the 2004 Barry Award for Best First Novel.

A graduate of Rutgers University, Stroby was an editor at the Star-Ledger of Newark, Tony Soprano's hometown newspaper, for 13 years.

Reviews

[James Thane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent early novel from Wallace Stroby who would go on to write the Crissa Stone series, which remains one of my all-time favorites. The protagonist here is Harry Rane, a former New Jersey state trooper. The woman he loves has gone off to Seattle "to think things over," and Harry is left to bide his time, medicating himself with whatever will help him make it through the night, while praying that she ultimately decides to come back to him.

While killing time, Harry goes to work for a P.I. firm owned by another ex-trooper and takes on a case involving a woman named Nikki Ellis, a former "adult entertainer." Nikki was once in a relationship with a thug named Johnny Harrow. Shortly after Harrow went away to prison for attempted murder, Nikki gave birth to their son and, in an effort to do what was best for the child, gave it up for adoption.

The problem is that she didn't consult Johnny about her decision and he's furious about it. Now, after seven years, Harrow is out of prison two years early and is on his way back to Jersey to claim what's his and to settle some old scores with Nikki and with a mobster he once worked for, among others. He has dreams of tracking down and taking his son and riding off into the sunset once he's accomplished his objectives. Nikki comes to the agency, desperately afraid that somehow, Harrow will break the code of secrecy that was supposed to surround the adoption process and find her son. She wants Harry to protect her and to ensure that Harrow won't find the boy.

It's going to be a lot harder than it sounds. Harrow is totally amoral, very resourceful and seems to have a powerful patron who just might be able to break through the red tape and find the boy. Harrow casually disposes of anyone who stands in his path, and before the dust has settled, Harry Ranes will be his number one target.

This is a very bleak, hard-boiled novel with desperate characters living on the thin edge of disaster. The story moves at a rapid clip and one of the things that struck me most about the book was the humanity of the characters, Harry and Nikki in particular. These are real, believable people, trapped in circumstances that threaten to overwhelm them at almost any moment. You care for them immediately and that significantly ratchets up the tension in the novel. All of it builds to a stunning climax and this book demonstrates all over again why Wallace Stroby is one of the true bright lights in contemporary crime fiction. A must for fans of the hard-boiled genre.

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely well written. Plotted paths intermixed to an extreme and more than complex reality. But very, very violent and unforgiving. I won't read any more of his for eons. Reminds me too of the terrible corruption and brutal ends not far from home. And the total lacks for any conscience or respect for life.

As I am trying to avoid adoption fail tales or any adoption misery of custody aftermath I am tending to hit several. All from baby to kid to teenager levels. Hoping no such biological fathers turn up around here. God forbid. Why does that happen so often? For awhile I was hitting female twins in a similar congruence!

[Daniel Sevitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good enough, I guess. This felt like more of an Elmore Leonard homage than the other Stroby books I've read. The baddie is smart and mostly stays ahead of our hero. I do love the feel of these kind of mass market paperbacks in my hands, but this was also kinda forgettable.

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic follow up to his Jersey land hard-boiled debut . He does wonders with his blue-collar characters. Kinda wish he'd bring Harry back, but I bought the first two of his " Crissa Stone" series..so looking forward to heading down the Jersey shore road again. **if that's where they take place** :)

[Michael Martz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've just completed 'The Heartbreak Lounge' and am saddened to realize I have quickly ripped through Wallace Stroby's entire catalog and now must wait for a new one. Get with it, Stroby!

The Heartbreak Lounge follows up The Barbed Wire Kiss and leads me to believe this author was born for this genre. It has everything and more that its predecessor and successors possess: stripped down writing, lots of action, a good plot, great characters, excellent dialogue, frightening violence, and some very bad hombres (one in particular). It begins with the early release from a 9 year Federal prison sentence in Florida by real rough customer, Johnny Harrow, who murders the first person who picks him up as he hitchhikes his way North. That's just the first of many this guy commits as he has a plan in his mind to not only find his son who was put up for adoption as he was sent away to prison but also to make a big score with his old crew of mafia-types up in Jersey. He's going against Harry Rane, an ex- state trooper now working private security who is hired to protect the ex-con's girlfriend. The main problem the good guys face is that Harrow not only has an uncanny ability to avoid being found as he does his one-man crime spree but also seems to be able to track people he wants to find with ease. The Heartbreak Lounge follows Harrow as he gets involved with his old crew in his prior job as 'muscle' while also using every bit of leverage to locate his son.

Stroby is an absolute master of the crime novel genre and seems to have been that way from the beginning. The Heartbreak Lounge is just dynamite.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This guy can write so well. I am working my way through his back catalogue and sad that there are only 3 more left to read. His characters seem so very real, the snow scenes make me feel cold, the shoot outs and violence are so well depicted, they really are scary and breathtaking.

I have no idea why Wallace Stroby is not better known - I honestly believe he is better than the Michael Connellys and John Sandfords - they are still great, but Stroby is even better.

I am a big fan and hope he keeps writing for many more years to come.

[Delcene Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book.

It’s a good guys versus bad guy with a damsel in distress chucked in for good measure story.

In this case it’s private investigators (ex cop good guys) versus organised crime hit man (very very bad guy) and ex lap dancer - prostitute (damsel in distress).

It’s intelligently written, good plot and I found it unputdownable.

I’ve ordered a couple more books from this author.

Happy days.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wallace Stroby sure knows how to write killers - the protagonist John Harrow is scarily cold-blooded, and has only one redeeming characteristic - his feelings for his son. This is a well-plotted story with believable narrative and characters, that kept me on my toes with suspense. The pace is constant and doesn't let up. Gritty noir at its best.

[Mysticpt · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Sean McCoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good follow-up to Barbed Wire Kiss. I was worried when Stroby added another POV character, this time a criminal named Johnny, mostly because I had become so used to Harry's voice - I was unsure that I would like another character. Johnny's hardly likable, but he keeps the action moving, and certainly fulfills the role of a protagonist as someone who wants something very strongly and will stop at nothing to get it. In that light, Harry's a sort of antagonist to Johnny, primarily trying to stop Johnny from getting what he wants.

[Carol Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hardboiled! A good read, but oddly dated.

[Ross Cumming · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read all of Wallace Stroby's novels to date, except this one, which has alluded me for various reasons. I read the first Harry Rane novel way back in 2016 and meant to read The Heartbreak Lounge soon after but at the time Mr Stroby's novels weren't all available on Kindle here in the UK. I managed to get a paperback copy but then mislaid it and it was only after reading his latest novel, Heaven's A Lie, that I realised that I still hadn't read this one but thankfully now it is available on Kindle !
Harry Rane is working as an investigator, in the Jersey area, for his friend Ray and he is also lamenting that his girlfriend Cristina has moved to Seattle, to put a little space between them, till she decides the future of their relationship. Johnny Harrow has been recently released from the Glades prison in Florida, after serving a 7 year stretch and is on his way back to Jersey to reclaim his girlfriend Nikki and his son, who she gave up for adoption while he was away. Nikki on receiving the news employs Ray's company for protection from Harrow and Harry is drawn into the case and also under Nikki's charms. However Nikki isn't Johnny's only concern, he's got a brother that he wants to reconnect with and also he's got some unfinished business with his old man and also the local Jersey mob, who he was previously employed by.
Although it's taken me some time to get round to reading this it may actually be my favourite Wallace Stroby novel. The novel précis made it sound like it was a pretty straightforward case of Harrow returning to his old Jersey stomping ground seeking revenge but its a whole lot more complicated than that. Harrow gained his release by agreeing to become an informant for the Feds, he also goes back and hooks up with his mob employers to reclaim what he was due and also starts to carry out the 'wet work' that he was previously so good at. While doing this he gains information on his adopted sons whereabouts and also sets about locating Nikki too. Despite being a crime novel, it is also all about relationships. Harrow and his brother Mitch were mistreated by their stepfather and Harrow wants to do right by his brother and make up for the years they've missed due to his incarceration. He also wants to confront his stepfather regarding the treatment he received at his hands but his father is now an old man and a shadow of his former self. Harrow's relationship with Nikki is more complicated, as although I felt he wanted her back, reclaim their child and play happy families but this was never going to happen. Harry also has a predicament as falls for Nikki but he also pines for Cristina and he ultimately has got a decision to make regarding his future relationships with the two women. In common with Stroby's other novels there is also plenty of violence, especially on Harrow's part, as that is ultimately how he resolves most of his problems. The tension builds slowly until it reaches a crescendo, as you know eventually that there is going to be a showdown between Harrow and Harry and you know it isn't going to end well for one of them.
As I've already said, this is possibly my favourite Wallace Stroby novel and I just wish I had read it sooner.

[Jim Thomsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The snow danced in his headlights, made kamikaze runs at the windshield. He felt his eyelids grow heavy, sleep stealing up on him. It was shock, he knew. Loss of blood. He had to fight it. He powered the window down a crack, the cold air whipping in, turned on the stereo. Marvin Gaye singing about mercy."

Tone and voice. That's why you read Wallace Stroby. Not plot. The plots: well, if you're at all well-read in the noir genre, you know stories like this one, have read them dozens of times before. You enjoy them the way you enjoy putting muscle memory to work. Lone-wolf detective types, criminals bent on power and vengeance, hot and cold nights, clouds and mist rolling off the shore, lots of cigarette smoking and guns in glove compartments and not speaking more than the absolute minimum. People who allow themselves to drift on a poisonous belief in fate.

That's OK as far as it goes, but it runs out well before THE HEARTBREAK LOUNGE does. It's the second Harry Rane story — and the name alone tells you something about the story's cool hypermasculine antecedents — and it's a good thing it was the last Harry Rane story, because down the final stretch, the beats beat familiar echoes of his first adventure, THE BARBED-WIRE KISS. There's a man obsessed with something he doesn't have, and there's a woman in his orbit who drifts into Harry's, and before long there's a lot of sex and scheming and splattering of blood, and the woman ends up a door prize in a dick-matching contest between Harry and the baddie.

And it works. Because Stroby is such a master of seductive cool-blue tone, that male propensity for saying less and showing almost as little as things get more spun up in greed and hatred and inability to admit to fatal weaknesses. It rolls along like surf at the Jersey shore, a hypnotic background roar with a beguiling effect: "He kissed the nape of her neck, felt her tremble, traced his lips down the bumps of her spine. He kissed the butterfly, flicking his tongue against the ink, tasting the salt sweat of her skin. Outside the window, snowflakes spiraled up, lifted by the wind. They touched gently against the glass without leaving a mark, and were blown back out into the night."

All of which means: I'll always be in on a Stroby novel for that magic tone. But I'll always wish he married that tone to a story with some surprises in it.

[Ginny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just out of jail in Florida, John Harrow wants to find his son who was born and given up for adoption while he was incarcerated. John has his own code and will play both ends against the middle to get what he wants. Enter RW Investigations and Harry Ranes, who want to protect the mother of Harrow's child. Lots of moving parts in this one, Harrow's methodology for getting information and his soft spot for young children make for an interesting dichotomy in his personality. The locations are gritty and many of the characters are in survival mode. Enjoyed the read.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhat out dated in spots but not negatively. The story rolled along in a rough and tough fashion but I found the ending somewhat surprising. Only negatives were too much sex that we really didn't need to know about and could have used our own imagination? I flirted with both a 3 and 4 star finally concluding with a deserved 4.

[John Bunyan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Harry Rane and this is a pretty good book. It has the feel of an Elmore Leonard story but more hard boiled.
The story is about violent people but the violence is graphic and seems gratuitous. There is a vicious dog fight scene that is totally unnecessary.
Also everyone in the book expresses the exact same philosophy of life.

[Russ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read, great characters. Jersey shore crime fiction

[Stephen Selbst · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid but formulaic thriller.

[L · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has significantly more violence and explicit sex that I really need, but damn, the story was great!

[Jacob Dzik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr. Stroby writes some of my favorite villains.

[PhattandyPDX · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good early novel by Wallace Stroby

[Billy Beasley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it in three days. It definitely kept me intrigued all the way through.

[Maddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

RATING: 3.25
PROTAGONIST: Harry Rane, former NJ State Trooper
SETTING: Southern New Jersey
SERIES: #2

Harry Rane is leading a life of quiet despair. Formerly a New Jersey State Trooper, he is biding his time waiting for a woman he loves to figure out her feelings and hopefully leave Seattle to be with him. His days consist of doing some mindless investigative work for another former Trooper, Ray Washington, and self medicating against the physical pain he is experiencing as a result of an injury sustained in the first book in this series, THE BARBED WIRE KISS.

At times, Harry meets with Ray and prospective new clients to learn what help they need. At one such meeting with a woman named Nikki Ellis, he immediately puts her on the defensive, and she leaves. Feeling guilty about leaving Ray in the lurch, Harry tracks her down and gets involved in her problem. It turns out that her ex, Johnny Harrow, has just been released from a prison in Florida. His main mission is to track down Nikki and find their son, who she placed for adoption shortly after his birth. He's also looking to settle some scores with some of the mobsters whose betrayals led to his arrest.

Most of the book focuses on Johnny and his pathology, the things that he does to find Nikki, his "partnership" with an FBI agent who has traded Johnny's early release from prison for getting information from the Mob, and his connections with the gangster element of South Jersey. Nikki was a dancer at The Heartbreak Lounge, and that's where Johnny starts his quest. The story is heavy on "heartbreak", making the title a very ironic one. Stroby is a fine writer, and his portrayal of Johnny is one of the high points of the book.

My one issue with this (and the first) book is how Stroby portrays the relationships that Harry develops with the lead female characters. They just aren't convincing. In the case of Nikki and Harry, she constantly brings up her past and he nobly accepts all of her flaws and peccadilloes. The same is true of his interactions with the woman he is waiting for, Cristina. Somehow, this "love of Harry's life" scenario never feels all that deep and meaningful.

Harry Rane is almost an old-fashioned character, with a touch of chivalry that is sometimes disguised by the violence around him. In spite of the grim realities of his life, there's a glimmer of hope that is an undercurrent of the book, a hope of second chances and a brighter future. Will that future be realized? The uncertainty around that is what keeps the reader involved. A "happy Harry" doesn't seem likely, but we can hope that will happen. Recommended.

[Mrs. Read · Rating 1 out of 5]

This review of Wallace Stroby’s The Heartbreak Lounge will be of no interest to the overwhelming majority of readers.
Chapter 9 of the book is devoted to a portrayal of a character who mutilates live dogs for fun and profit. The material seems totally gratuitous - the character is mentioned nowhere else in the book’s 40+ chapters (Kindle search). A more literate person than I wrote long ago that “Every man’s work – whether it be literature or music or architecture or anything else – is always a portrait of himself.” I seen enough of Stroby’s to look away.
This is not a criticism of The Heartbreak Lounge. It is simply the kind of warning label I’d have appreciated seeing before starting the book.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

#2 in the Harry Kane series.

Ex-NJ Trooper Harry Rane is working for ex-Trooper Ray Washington's PI firm. Although they get off to a rocky start, Harry and Nikki Ellis develop a relationship while he protects her from the psycho father of her given-up-for-adoption child, who has just been released from a 7 year stretch in a FL prison and is leaving a trail of bodies behind him.

[Mark Levine · Rating 3 out of 5]

More concise than previous effort but still too much nonessential description.Uses all the classic conventions but moves along story wise.Dialogue not believable.Written by literary author,but not true to the gritty characters.

[Alecia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty solid earlier work, but it meanders a bit at times. Harry Rane, the former cop turned private investegator, is the book's hero. But Stroby really gets better in his two most recent novels. For some reason, he seems to write better when his protagonist is a female.

[Frederic · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the fourth Stroby that I've read in the last month and they are all good,solid,unpretentious pieces with a healthy respect for the genre conventions...

[Marjon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stroby throws in so many twists and turns and it keeps you guessing pretty much until the end. The protagonist is very well written, but I wonder about his choices in women!

[Timothy Parfitt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn't get into the characters. Romantic angle felt forced.