Marilyn Stasio
…[a] lean and lethal noir narrative…
—The New York Times Book Review
Publishers Weekly
The enigmatic loner known as Driver, introduced in 2005’s Drive, takes to the road again after two thugs assault him and his fiancée on a Phoenix, Ariz., street in this terse, brutal, poetic, perfectly wrought sequel. Maybe Driver is paranoid, but is it really paranoia when one team of hit men after another track you down and try to put you on ice? “Two cars this time, and they’d waited for an isolated stretch of road. Chevy Caprice and a high-end Toyota.” Sallis once again pays homage to the tight behaviorist style of French noir master Jean-Patrick Manchette (“he felt the trachea give way and fold in on itself”) and the bleak existential world of criminals beloved by fans of the films of Charles Bronson and Alain Delon, not to mention the passionate cult following for the 2011 film version of Drive. As is the case for all such episodes in the life of the stoic driver, you can come into this excellent novel cold, strap in, just hit the gas, and go. Author tour. Agent: Vicky Bijur, Vicky Bijur Literary Agency. (Apr.)
New York Times best-selling author Dennis Lehane
" DRIVEN is a lean and nasty piece of neo-noir. I took my seat on page one and didn't get back up again until it ended (far too quickly.) Always a pleasure to be in the hands of a master like James Sallis."
Chicago Tribune
"More thought, feeling and murderous energy than books twice its length"
New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio
"The perfect piece of noir fiction."
From the Publisher
"Lean and lethal...The underworld characters Driver deals with have a tendency to wax philosophical. 'You think about stuff much? Why you’re here, what it all means?' one of the hit men asks him. 'Not really,' Driver answers. And then he kills the guy." —New York Times
"Sallis works vividly throughout Driven, but he has a special gift for drawing cinematic chase scenes, all of which practically reek of burnt rubber and gasoline on the page...In the end, Driven is simply a great ride."—NPR
"The enigmatic loner known as Driver, introduced in 2005’s Drive, takes to the road again after two thugs assault him and his fiancée on a Phoenix street in this terse, brutal, poetic, perfectly wrought sequel." —Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Sallis, perhaps the most genuinely poetic crime writer alive, bleeds tone on every page, crafting sentences that read like a Thomas Hardy lyric." —Booklist, starred review
"Coming hard on the heels of the 2011 film version of cult favorite Drive, this gritty, gristly tale will rivet Sallis's growing audience." —Library Journal
"Imagine the heart of Jim Thompson beating in the poetic chest of James Sallis and you'll have some idea of the beauty, sadness and power of “Drive"...[it] has more thought, feeling and murderous energy than books twice its length."—Chicago Tribune, praise for Drive
Library Journal
Sallis's slim sequel to his acclaimed Drive might at first glance seem like a prose poem or a children's book. With its close attention to telling detail and a vocabulary that rarely ranges beyond two-syllable words, it is a bit of both, mixed with interludes of extreme violence, in an angst-drenched Phoenix. That is to say that this novel is a close to perfectly executed noir. By the second paragraph, Driver sees his lover viciously shot dead at his side, and this causes him to set out to discover who is after him. The language is plain, the action is brutal, and the characters are memorably and briefly etched. Typical is this characterization of a suburban couple: "Sectional couch! Jell-O salad! Mashed potatoes! Lawrence Welk!" Charles Bukowski couldn't have said it better. VERDICT Coming hard on the heels of the 2011 film version of cult favorite Drive, this gritty, gristly tale will rivet Sallis's growing audience.—Bob Lunn, Kansas City, MO
