The Max

The Max by Ken Bruen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Since the last Bruen and Starr Hard Case effort, Max Fisher has been thrown in the hoosegow for his illegal dealings and Angela is on the run. Max lands in Attica and starts making enemies all over the place. Angela meets up with a suave Englishman who isn't what he seems. Throw in a prison riot, a murdered landlord, and an author who is obsessed with the M.A.X. and there you have it.

If you've read the other two Bruen and Starr books in the Hard Case line, you already know about Angela and her rotten choices in men and Max's line of bullshit. They're the same characters they've been in the previous two books. Every time Max, or The M.A.X. as he refers to himself, opens his mouth, I cringe a little. Not because of the writing but because Max is a dead ringer for a boss I used to have. He was a conceited douchebag too.

While I enjoyed reading about Max making the dog's breakfast out of his prison stay, Angela's part of the story wasn't much different than in her other two appearances. I guess what I'm trying to say is that while I enjoyed this book, it wasn't quite as good as Slide or Bust, although the prison setting was interesting. If you've been following the unsympathetic protagonists this far, you might as well give this one a shot. I wouldn't start my Hard Case experience with it, though.

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