This Wicked World

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This Wicked World Pub. Date: 6/30/2009 Publisher: Little, Brown & Company

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Overview

Elmore Leonard meets Denis Johnson in this explosive first novel set on the seedy side of Southern California.

Ex-marine Jimmy Boone-former bodyguard to Los Angeles's rich and famous-is fresh out of Corcoran, on parole, and trying to keep his nose clean until he figures out his next move. He has a job tending bar on Hollywood Boulevard, serving drinks to tourists, and is determined to put the past behind him.

But trying to do the right thing has always been Boone's downfall. When he backs up a buddy on a hero-for-hire gig-looking into the mysterious death of a kid on a downtown bus-he once again finds himself in a world of trouble.

As Boone learns more about the boy, an innocent who got involved with the wrong people, his investigation becomes a mission. Along the dangerous margins of Los Angeles, he encounters down-on-their-luck drug dealers, a vengeful stripper, a dog-fighting ring, a beautiful ex-cop, a vicious crime boss and his crew, and a fortune in counterfeit bills. Before long, Boone realizes that his quest to get at the truth about a ruthless murder may also turn out to be his last chance at redemption.

This Wicked World is a knock-out blend of superb writing and breakneck storytelling that grabs you by the collar and makes it impossible to stop reading.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Set in L.A., Lange's visceral, hard-hitting first novel puts him squarely in the ring with the best young neo-noir writers. Jimmy Boone, a former Marine and ex-con lying low and waiting out his probation by tending bar on Hollywood Boulevard, gets drawn back onto dangerous ground after he agrees to help his bouncer buddy, Robo, look into the death of a young Guatemalan immigrant found covered in infected dog bites on an MTA bus. Boone and Robo get on a trail that leads from a ghetto dope pad, where they rescue an abused and toothless fighting dog, to a secluded desert compound near Twentynine Palms, where a psychotic crime boss, Taggert, hosts bloody dog-fighting contests. Boone soon finds himself in way over his head as he comes up against Taggert's crew of degenerates. While the book contains some familiar set pieces, Lange, the author of the story collection Dead Boys, shows he has the potential to put his own distinctive mark on the mythology of Los Angeles. (June)

Kirkus Reviews

Ex-con tries to keep straight in this hard-boiled first novel. After he left the Marine Corps, Jimmy Boone turned his imposing physique and slightly violent temperament into a lucrative career as a bodyguard. After an unfortunate experience with a client, he ended up in Corcoran. Now, back on the outside, he's tending bar on Hollywood Boulevard and trying to stay out of trouble. But Lange's Los Angeles is built on the bones of Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles, so all it takes is the mysterious death of an illegal immigrant to draw Boone into an ugly world of drugs, dog fights and truly inventive parole violations. Lange displayed his mastery of short fiction with the story collection Dead Boys (2007), in which each brief narrative felt true and inevitable. This longer, more complex tale occasionally feels contrived. But the author more than makes up for the slightly creaky plot with his compelling characters. Even the minor players are fully-formed, and Lange manages to depict a little bit of L.A. with each one. Consider, for example, T.K.: His day job is doing dirty work for a sociopathic crime boss, but his dream is to star in a series of martial-arts-influenced fitness DVDs that will be bigger than Tae Bo. Smartly entertaining noir, and a promise of better novels to come.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780316017374
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
Publication date: 6/30/2009
Pages: 416
Sales rank: 896,609
Product dimensions: 5.90 (w) x 8.40 (h) x 1.40 (d)

Meet the Author

Richard Lange is the author of the highly acclaimed story collection, Dead Boys, which received the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His fiction has appeared in StoryQuarterly, The Sun, The Iowa Review, and Best American Mystery Stories 2004. He lives in Los Angeles. This is his first novel.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4.5

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KenCady

Posted December 18, 2009

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Ready For A Louis Armstrong Song

What a wicked world. Richard Lange's first novel is a firecracker of human interest as Jimmy Boone, fresh out of prison, tries to live life on the upside despite numerous bad guys trying to change his path. Boone meets Amy, an ex-cop with a story of her own, and its his interest in her that propels him to deal with the bad guys, yet in his own way. We travel to the desert to meet dog fighters and their pals, and Boone eventually goes head to head to with them in a violent confrontation. As likable as the story is, as much as we root for Boone, the fact remains that this is indeed a wicked world, and Lange takes you right into it, game or not.
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