Book Review – Sucker Punch

Title: Sucker Punch
Author: Ray Banks
Cover Artist: Vaughn Andrews
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Binding: Hardcover
Publication Date: February 12, 2009

(Editor’s note — The UK title is Donkey Punch)

Everybody’s got problems in Sucker Punch, Ray Banks’ second book in the Callum Innes private eye series.

Yeah, Cal just got off parole, but he’s developed a huge codeine habit since we last saw him. His boss at the boxing club, Paulo, has troubles too, mainly from all-around asshole Mo Tiernan who has taken up selling drugs to the kids that frequent Paulo’s gym. Hell, if you’re the sympathetic type even old Mo’s got troubles too, seeing how his old man, Manchester’s main mobster Morris Tiernan, has disowned him, cutting him off from his influence and protection.

Taking advantage of Mo’s new low status, Cal – who is decidedly of the unlicensed P.I. business – takes it upon himself to teach Mo a lesson, use a bit of the old muscle make the fucker sell elsewhere. Thing is, he ends up getting his ass kicked instead. By Mo fucking Tiernan, for fuck’s sake. You’d think it’d be time to quit the pills when a poser like Mo can take you down but no, Cal’s not ready for such a drastic step just yet.

After such an indignity, it’s the perfect time for a holiday and Paulo’s got just the opportunity. Paulo’s star amateur, young ex-offender Liam, has the chance to make a name for himself in the States at a comp in Los Angeles. This could be Liam’s one chance at going pro and – for some reason – Paulo thinks Cal is just the man for the job of Liam’s glorified chauffer.

But from the moment they touch down in the City of Angels, the two have, you know, more troubles. First there’s the guy running the competition, Phil Shapiro, an ex-boxer and ex-con, who Cal can tell up front is about as trust-worthy as a fucking python. Then there’s the other bright boy of the competition, California rich boy Josh Callahan, who, along with his shifty old man, is doing his damnedest to psyche out Liam the moment he lays eyes on him. And Cal’s not certain that Liam, who was put in juvie for kicking the shit out of a fucking granny, can keep his shit together long enough to make an impression in the competition. Then there’s Cal’s new found drinking buddy Nelson, another ex-boxer with certain…eccentricities…

Banks, like he did with Saturday’s Child, takes it easy with the plot, lets shit play out slowly and realistically. There are no insane twists here, no huge shocks or cliff-hanger chapter endings – no fucking way. Banks’ take on noir is more in line with the works of Sean Doolittle and George Pelecanos than it is with Allan Guthrie or Victor Gischler. Dude takes his time, for sure, but we’re never bored, not in the fucking least.

Because you see, the guy just has such a way with character and setting that the pages just flip on by, fueled by his knack for sharp-as-fuck dialogue and Cal’s dark insights on his surroundings. There is a lot of hanging out at the bar (one of the wryest jokes in the book is that, though he’s supposed to be “touristing” it up in Los Angeles, Cal spends his every free moment drinking in shit holes instead of seeing the famous sights), waiting around smoking, sizing people up, making observations, that sort of thing.

‘Cuz it all comes back to character with the Cal Innes novels, and Cal is one of the great creations of the new class of neo-noir. He’s an alcoholic, a pill-popper, an ex-con, and often a bit of a thug, but he has some sort of fraying, fucked-up code that makes him one of the good guys – not “white hat” good, but as close as we’re gonna get in Banks’ dark little world.

And that world is filled with yet more great characters that just pass through the novel as they would in life, like the questionable “bum” who helps Cal get a bargain on a pack of smokes, or the similarly questionable “hooker” who Cal manages to send into a rage at the bar. Banks is just so fucking deft at making these small moments loom as large in the novel as the more traditional crime novel scenes of brutal beatings and double-crosses, making for such a seemingly organic, completely fresh experience.

And for me, such an experience is just as exciting as the crazy plots, the blood-and-guts, the out-sized murdering psychos, and other fucked up shit found elsewhere in the noir genre today. Banks has his own thing going, and it fucking demands to be read.

By you.

Like, fucking yesterday, you dig?

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