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(also reviewed)
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What's below hopeless and helpless? Well, I'll tell you what: it makes me the ultimate underdog.
A lot of noise is made, ink is spilled and time is lost trying to define noir as a literary genre. To be honest, the only inherent meaning of the term is ''bleak'' and outside of making your story as bleak as it gets, you're pretty much free to draw outside the lines as much as you want. Same goes with hardboiled fiction really and one author who's drawing outside the line with great passion and energy is Anonymous 9, the Californian mad scientist of fiction who created Dean Drayhart, the wheelchair-bound vigilante. Guess what? Drayhart and his buddy Sid are back in BITE HARDER, a sequel leaner and meaner than the original novel.
BITE HARDER picks up right after the events of HARD BITE, like literally. It could've been the second half of a long, hectic and over the top hardboiled novel about the mean streets of Los Angeles. After the wild and traumatic events of HARD BITE where Dean got in a confrontation with a powerful cartel family, he is separated from his trusted helper monkey Sid and abducted by his enemies in order to provide him with a violent, painful, humiliating and spectacular death for the internet to see. Bring whatever muscle you feel like against Dean Drayhart and you are just setting yourself up for trouble. Manpower isn't really a factor against him, Dean being paralyzed and all. It just create a greater sandbox for his ambitions of creating a world of chaos for irresponsible drivers.
I liked the first Dean Drayhart novel HARD BITE, but I wasn't swept away by it. Anonymous 9 has fine tuned her craft though and BITE HARDER is leaner, badder and more fuel efficient. Not only it settled on being mostly a third person narration (the constant switch bugged me in the first novel), but Anonymous 9 also focused on creating histrionic and memorable quiproquo situations based around Dean's condition. How many trained, ruthless killers does it take to capture and kill a handicapped man and his pet monkey? Apparently a lot. Some scenes of BITE HARDER could have been sketches on their own. They are visual and dynamic enough to work, yet the are cleverly embedded in a more subtle and cohesive (yet maybe a little less challenging) narrative than HARD BITE.
''What does it FUCKIN' TAKE to FUCKIN' KILL a bastard who is already HALF DEAD??!!''
The bright yellow body bag laid out on the living room sofa rises and falls with rhythmic breathing but nobody pays any attention. Grande speaks up with a small voice for a big man. ''We, we used Jorge on the inside, he's a good guy. Drayhart moved already to another bed. Jorge stuck the wrong guy.''
''Killed him, huh?''
''No, just stuck a little before he noticed the mistake. There was some blood but he'll be okay.''
If you're not familiar with Dean Drayhart, you guys, then you need to right that wrong. He's some kind of shooting star in the often stagnant landscape of hardboiled fiction, not unlike Daniel Friedman's Buck Schatz. He's not a hero, because nobody would like to be him. He's not a anti-hero either, because he's not operating from a selfless place. Dean is actually enjoying himself killing reckless driver and feuding with a cartel family. Given his hopeless condition, he's become a satyr, a creator of chaos and destruction from his wheelchair. Dean Drayhart is a narrative oddity, and you have to love him for that. He's the extreme, borderline cartoonish representation of the undying strength of the human spirit.
I know I've compared BITE HARDER with its predecessor HARD BITE a lot, but you have to understand that these two books go together. They are an omnibus edition waiting to happen, maybe even a graphic novel adaptation. There is a lot to like about BITE HARDER, the Dean Drayhart series seems to be taking its stride and after such a refreshing volume, I'd welcome at least another addition. Anonymous 9 has created a character that you may not be able to read viscerally because of his difference, but who proves to be very efficient and satisfying in the hystrionic, graphic novel-like universe that she created for him. Characters like Dean Drayhart are few and far between, so enjoy it while it lasts.
I know I've compared BITE HARDER with its predecessor HARD BITE a lot, but you have to understand that these two books go together. They are an omnibus edition waiting to happen, maybe even a graphic novel adaptation. There is a lot to like about BITE HARDER, the Dean Drayhart series seems to be taking its stride and after such a refreshing volume, I'd welcome at least another addition. Anonymous 9 has created a character that you may not be able to read viscerally because of his difference, but who proves to be very efficient and satisfying in the hystrionic, graphic novel-like universe that she created for him. Characters like Dean Drayhart are few and far between, so enjoy it while it lasts.