I don’t know that much about crime author Jason Starr, but I’m confident he’s turned over rocks at midnight in dark alleys most people wouldn’t go at high noon. Starr has a real knack for getting into the twisted and brutal psyche of fringe dwellers, like the one he introduces in his latest novel, Fake I. D.
Tommy Russo is a sometime actor, a full-time bartender, and a gambling addict that never met a losing horse he wouldn’t bet on. Or anything else that would lose for that matter. Starr presents this character almost sympathetically in the beginning, showing that maybe he’s just had some bad breaks, and probably he has.
But the novel picks up right as those fissures in the character become gaping chasms and boost Russo to the point of no return. Despite his faults, everyone seems to like Russo, and I believed it. I’ve met guys like Russo who are likable yet deeply flawed. Starr manages to show both sides of his character, and his first-person voice detailing Russo’s thought processes and rationales for what he’s doing is fantastic.
While I turned the pages, Russo was a living, breathing person for me. I hung out with him at the track, felt his frustrations at the commercial audition, and got to know everyone at O’Reilly’s bar where he worked. But even as I got to know him, I became afraid for him and of what he was going to do.
Starr really puts the pressure on his character and piles up bad luck as well as bad choices till it all hits the fan. The last half of the book is tightly written and keeps the reader on his toes, like watching a car wreck happen in slow motion.
The dialogue is great, and Starr demonstrates that he has a fantastic ear for listening to other people speak. So many of the characters in the book that surround Russo are defined by their conversations with him and how they treat him. The relationships, especially the one with bar owner Frank O’Reilly, are especially well done. Guys like Tommy Russo attract the crowd he runs with, and no one is safe.
Article comments
1 - Connie James
I'm afraid this one did not do it for me. I love hard case crime and most of the novels they've sent me have been fantastic. Authors I've already known and loved -- Spillaine, Westlake, Bloch, Block, Max Allen Collins, McBain and others -- and ones I was pleased to meet, like Rifken, Parker, Faust, Lange, Howard Hunt (who knew?) and others. I found Slide and The Max enjoyable, if not particularly appealing, and thought Jason Starr and Ken Bruenn did a good job creating characters who were sympathetic even as anti-protagonists. Not quite Elmore Leonard, but nobody is.
Having read "Fake I.D.," I have to give the lion's share of credit to Bruenn. For me, Russo did not resonate. He was not darkly intriguing; he was dull, pitiful and uncreative. I should have guessed there wasn't much to him when the gotcha! exerpt up front was an uninspired pocketbook raid that left no doubt as to the culprit. Given all the positive press Starr gets, I am willing to concede he is probably a talented writer but, for me at least, he phoned in this predictable clunker. Once I commit to a book, I feel compelled to finish it and it reminded me of the literary purgatory of Tami Hoag's "The Thin Dark Line." At least "Fake I.D." wasn't 592 pages.
Most readers seem to have really enjoyed it and I'm glad for them; I hope I catch the Starr fizz when I read another.