Tough Luck

...one of the new voices of noir fiction, a writer capable of taking noir from what it has always been toward whatever it can become. He's got his own slant, his own slashing style, and the moral honesty true noir requires' - Daniel Woodrell Mickey Prada is a nice kid. Perhaps too nice. He works in a neighbourhood seafood market in Brooklyn putting fish on ice. He's got a nice girlfriend. He even delayed college a year, to look after his sick dad who's gradually losing his marbles and has a tendency to go walkabout. But Mickey's got a little problem. A customer at the fish store, Angelo Santoro, keeps asking Mickey to place bets for him and Angelo keeps losing. As Angelo gets further in the hole, his bad luck is turning out to be Mickey's too. Now Mickey's got his bookie after him and Angelo's showing him the butt of his pistol rather than paying him back. So when his best friend, Chris, asks Mickey to join him on a can't-lose caper, Mickey decides to go along. But, sure-fire schemes often have a way of backfiring, and this one is sending Mickey into an uncharted part of Brooklyn, where fish like Chris and Mickey have trouble...

Jason Starr is the author of Cold Caller, Nothing Personal, Fake I.D., Hard Feelings and Tough Luck followed by Lights Out, The Follower, Panic Attack, Savage Lane and his latest novel, Too Far. He was born in Brooklyn in 1966 and still lives in New York City.