Review: Stagger Bay is cutting edge noir
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 20, 2012
In the Northern California city of Stagger Bay, Markus is a man with a criminal past now doing his best "pretending to be a stone cold citizen." Then things go wrong. The novel opens with him taken from his home in handcuffs, busted for the perverted slaughter of every member of the Beardsley family including the pets. Evidence points to him. He is now the most hated man in Stagger Bay. But he had no part in the murders. As Markus puts it, "That's when I had a sneaking suspicion I was royally (screwed)."This novel is no fun-fest for Markus. He spends seven years in prison, loses his family, and when he gets out he returns to Stagger Bay. For all that, this is no pity-party for Markus. His philosophy is "...this world is designed to crush you like a bug, but that is no tragedy." Markus is a hard man who can take whatever he is dealt.Stagger Bay is being terrorized by a serial killer known as the Driver, only seen stalking the town in a Mercury Cougar. Soon the Beardsley murders and the mystery of the Driver are parts of a larger case of even more perversity, corruption, and bloodshed. What could have been just another revenge plotline becomes something more ambitious and complex. Like a pale rider in town Markus has to save Stagger Bay itself.From the first sentence you're caught up in this to the last page. With hardcore authenticity Pearce Hansen writes about the darkness at the edge of town and the darkness the town is built on. Hansen's writing is intensely cinematic, incapable of a false note or a dull moment in a novel that fuses cutting edge gritty street level noir with the classic western.