Leonard fans should be pleased, " Publishers Weekly
"Darby Holland is a modern hero in the mod of Sam Spade and Marlow only with more tattoos and in steeltoed boots.
" Ace Atkins, New York Timesbestselling author of Robert B, Parker's Slow Burn
In this third novel in the Darby Holland Crime Novel series, Darby's past rises up to do more than haunt him.
You can run, but in the information age you can only hide for so long, Midnight Rider Productions is a dark web nightmare machine, headed by the one man who years ago drove Darby to hide in the seamy environs of Old Town and make his life there.
But Darby left his own mark back in the day and the shadowy head of production has a grudge to settle.
Rider has found him at long last and plans to make an example of him, Every dark secret of Darbys is exposed, every triumph reversed, every dream made real is set on fire, and as the Feds circle, smelling blood in the water, Darby has to run the most brutal rearguard action in the history of crimemeetscrime and gamble that he has finally grown powerful enough, crazy enough, and hard enough to beat the Devil himself.
Meanwhile his best friend and shouldbe lover Delia, is about to be married to someone with his own dark secrets.
With the help of his friends new and old, Darby must save Delia and himself and the rest of the Lucky Supreme faithful as he plays one force against another with desperate brilliance in an epic conflict that rages through the dark underbelly of Portland, Oregon.
You'll notice I marked my reaction to this Darby Holland entry very well, However, I felt that it a tad disappointing coming of Darby's second installment, which is probably the best book I've read in a while.
Jeff really upped his game from bookgoing into book, Primarily he did it by developing the characters even further from the first one AND allowing them to dictate the direction and flow of the story.
Pretty basic, right Sure, It's also not an easy trick when you've gone a mystery to propose and solve all while filling in a colorful, hopefully fresh adventure all underpages or whatever it is I had the Audible book.
So cutting Jeff some slack, yeah, this is another winner for him, Very much so. I'm just sorry it comes with the news that, erm, Jeff Johnson's AGENT somehow killed Darby Holland as a career path.
Frankly,
Jeff, I call B, S. on that. If you wanted to write more Darby Holland books, what You'll be restrained by force James Comes will put on his Crackerjack tin badge and set Congress against you by dint of his squad of geeks and their paper pushing voodoo Could the creator of Darby Holland and Delia really have been run out of town by.
bad wording on a contract
Say it ain't so, Jeff, haha. I'm joking, guys.
OK, I'm HALF joking, guys, I read Jeff's new book, Deadbomb Bingo Ray, I suppose it'll please most of Jeff Johnson's fans, The problem for me is that it's not all that different from the Darby Holland books, Really it's a remix of the character except for taking out most of what made these books so cool.
Deadbomb Bingo Ray sigh does that really have to be his name, . . it's like when a suddenly famous musician freaks out and decides he's really a storyteller and dreams up a character in a concept album that arrives long past anyone cared and too conceptual for the people who just want to rock out with their c/ck out if you will, ha.
I sense I'll like Deadbomb Bingo Ray better in book, There is a lot of set up that always happens in Book, The character stuff will flourish in Book, I'm sure,
Still. I'll dream about the time we all had a detective series starring a criminal tattoo artist and his twisted little freak best friend who.
. . well, no spoilers. We have to make due with another "fixer," Deadbomb Bingo Ray,
BTW. I have a great sense of what should happen to Darby and Delia in book, Maybe I should write one of those fan stories, I won't because I have my own stories I'm not writing, haha,
That reminds me, I have to get published so one day I can click on GoodReads and listen to some jerk who claims to love me tear my books apart and tell me "it ain't what it used to be.
" haha.
I dig your work, Jeff, if you're reading this, I'm just disappointed we didn't get resolution before you moved on to Deadbomb Bingo Ray,
I'm hoping Deadbomb Bingo Ray and Darby Holland can meet, I suspect Delia will be too angry to be in Darby's presence, I sense that she would have left Darby with their, uh, no spoilers, . . their little collaboration. That collaboration would have been stewed in months of anger so that now, left alone, Darby feels like he's dealing with a complete and evil manifestation of Delia's rage both for Darby's role in what happened to redacted and for keeping it secret as bookclosed.
It would be like Darby is being chased down by the furies in a Greek potboiler,
Like the man said, I can dream about you, if I can't hold you tonight, Billy Ocean. Billy f'n Ocean. This is the third and final in the Darby Holland series and directly follows on from "A Long Crazy Burn".
Darby is being stalked the Feds busted his partner Delia is leaving crazy Korean gangster tried to kill him his tattoo shop was blown up the high body count is scaring off the staff and now he owns half the street.
Someone from Darby's past is toying with him who and why With shades of "The Truman Show", Darby finds himself cast in a play not of his own making.
What will be finally revealled as Darby tries to outwit the mysterious director by going offscript,
" I was going to tell them, the truth too. It was every bit as ugly as it could be, . "
Not as much action and violence as the second in the series I haven't read the first but can imagine action aplenty, and after the buildup, the ending left me a little flat.
But how do you successfully end a series, . I was happy I discovered this series as it's really good,
An engaging and entertaining book, full of twist and turns, that never bores you,
I loved the style of writing and the well written characters,
I look forward to reading other installment in this series,
Recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC,Pretty good overall. Having read the other two books in the series, I was definitely interested in reading this one, While I enjoyed it, like the end, which to me felt a bit rushed and contrived, Aside from that, a pretty fun read, Nothing really happened for the first, and then the ending was rushed and felt like an incomplete cliffhanger, Still fun, still a quick read, but Id hoped for more, . . Another excellent book in Johnsons Darby Holland Crime series, this is Book, I highly recommend these books, but its important to read them in order to get a feel and an understanding of Darby amp his twisted world.
I discovered Jeff Johnson completely by accident, I saw a review of a book called Everything Under by Daisy Johnson, it sounded good, so I ordered it.
What I got instead was Everything Under The Moon by Jeff Johnson, Totally my error but I absolutely LOVED his book amp I ending up ordering his Darby Holland Crime series and Ive loved every one.
Please note: I am NOT normally a lover of crime fiction, but his writing and his wild characters are so horribly evil, yet comical and compelling.
These books are great fun to read, pure escapism, One blurb I read described Jeff Johnsons books as “the literary equivalent of Quentin Tarantino directing a season of Portlandia with the spirit of Charles Bukowski consulting.
”
P. S. I did eventually read Everything Under by Daisy Johnson, Daisy amp Jeffs books could not possibly be any less alike, but her book was great too, Jeff Johnson is the author of Tattoo Machine, Tall Tales, Trues Stories And My Life In Ink, as well as several novels.
Visit Jeffs website at greatpinkskeleton, com for news on the upcoming noir Dirty Flamingo and the high desert picaresque Dime Bag Sadie, as well as theater and film news.
Jeff Johnson is the author of Tattoo Machine, Tall Tales, Trues Stories And My Life In Ink, as well as several novels.
Visit Jeff's website at greatpinkskeleton, com for news on the upcoming noir Dirty Flamingo and the high desert picaresque Dime Bag Sadie, as well as theater and film news.
sitelink.