" ... nothing good ever happens after 3am .."
And it certainly doesn't in Jeff Johnson's acerbic tale of revenge, murder, love, and double dealing. This puts me in mind of the graphic novel - akin to Sin City - where Darby Holland is a crude, rude, violent street hustler, and the story is raw, gritty and no holds bar.
Darby's tattoo parlour is blown up, he is beaten senseless, and behind the scenes, a real estate scam to clear out Portland Old Town and make it new and trendy develops. As the caper unfolds, the action hots up, the pace quickens (as does the readers' pulse rate), as Darby embarks upon the long road to revenge.
Found it not at all difficult to read as this is the follow on from "Lucky Supreme".
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@ Great Pink Skeleton
@ Gehenna & Hinnom
Lucky Supreme:
The night world of Old Town Portland Oregon has gone mad in the grip of gentrification and at the center of it all is Lucky Supreme a seedy tattoo parlor whose proprietor is a street-bred artist with a unique approach to problem solving Darby Holland has enough on his radar but when some flash tattoo artwork stolen from him resurfaces in California he cant help himself. His efforts to reclaim it set him on a dangerous path dragging along his delightfully eccentric colleagues including the brains behind his brawn, Delia a twiggy vinyl-clad punk genius secretly from the other side of the tracks Before the wrecking balls swing through Old Town in the name of progress Darby must settle old scores and face new demons to save his reputation his shop and his sanity. He has secrets of his own and a tattoo shop in Old Town was a perfect place to hide but when cash, lies, crime and history collide, Darby Holland will need his ramshackle skill set his wits and a lot of luck to rise to the top of a human food chain or be eaten alive.
The Animals After Midnight:
In this third novel in the Darby Holland Crime Novel series, Darby's past rises up to do more than haunt him. You can run, but in the information age you can only hide for so long. Midnight Rider Productions is a dark web nightmare machine, headed by the one man who years ago drove Darby to hide in the seamy environs of Old Town and make his life there. But Darby left his own mark back in the day and the shadowy head of production has a grudge to settle. Rider has found him at long last and plans to make an example of him. Every dark secret of Darby's is exposed, every triumph reversed, every dream made real is set on fire, and as the Feds circle, smelling blood in the water, Darby has to run the most brutal rearguard action in the history of crime-meets-crime and gamble that he has finally grown powerful enough, crazy enough, and hard enough to beat the Devil himself. Meanwhile is best friend and should-be lover Delia, is about to be married to someone with his own dark secrets. With the help of his friends new and old, Darby must save Delia and himself and the rest of the Lucky Supreme faithful as he plays one force against another with desperate brilliance in an epic conflict that rages through the dark underbelly of Portland, Oregon.
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