Kiss Me, Judas by Will Christopher Baer

The jumping off point for this novel isn't particularly original. It's something that seems like (or may even be) an urban legend. The main character goes back to his hotel room with a prostitute he's met at a bar and the next morning wakes up in a bathtub full of ice with one less kidney to his name.

But I've long been a sucker for this oft-told tale and all of its variations, so I must admit this was a large part of why I picked this thing up.

Even still, I was a bit apprehensive. This is advertised as kind of a literary noir type of read and I fully expected our hero with the missing kidney to delve into a hellish underworld to track down the organ thieves and exact a most terrible revenge. But only after much suffering, of course, and double-crosses, and horrifying revelations.

But, man, was I happy to find that this is NOT what I got. This book, this story, turned out to be something altogether different.

This thing is really good.

And I'm not going to tell you any more about it.

I'll just leave you with this list of things that may turn off potential readers:

1) It's told in first person, present tense by an unreliable narrator.
2) There are no heroes or anti-heroes in this book.
3) There are no quotation marks to be found in any of the dialogue.
4) Nearly every character is reprehensible and/or commits reprehensible acts.

This is crime/noir at its darkest.

You've been warned.

Read this book!