JACK TAYLOR NOVELS BRANT NOVELS CRIME NOVELS Once Were Cops American Skin Dispatching Baudelaire London Boulevard Her Last Call to Louis Macneice The Hackman Blues Rilke on Black MAX & ANGELA NOVELS AMERICAN SKIN US At the start of Bruen's dark tribute to the Irish fascination with the American dream, Stephen Blake is on the run after a bank heist, hoping to disappear in the desert near Tucson. He has the money, and his girlfriend, Siobhan, knows how to launder it. All he has to do is change his accent, his skin and pass as American. But John A. Stapleton, hit man for the IRA, wants more than his share of the swag, and the psychotic Dade, obsessively devoted to the music of Tammy Wynette, is wandering the Southwest like a slaughter wagon. Noir master Bruen (The Guards) effortlessly moves his story line back and forth in time, all his trademark pop culture references in place, the banshee of existential agony wailing loud. Buy the book from Amazon or an independent bookstore (Murder by the Book in Houston has them in stock!). PRAISE "Bruen fans will be enthralled."    —Publishers Weekly "Like getting sucker-punched with brass knuckles or kneecapped with a lead pipe, readers will not soon forget American Skin. Bruen's latest is arguably his best work to date; fueled by an inexhaustible supply of Jameson whiskey and just about every illegal narcotic known to man, this unrepentantly sadistic novel is like an out-of-control train that speeds off the tracks—on the very first page! What comes next is a jaw-dropping existential trek across the surreal and oftentimes nightmarish landscape that is American pop culture: from the Simpsons to Bukowski to crystal meth to the Sopranos, Bruen's latest is a visceral, visionary masterwork. Underneath all the graphic bloodshed and drug-induced chaos, however, are deeply profound, darkly poetic themes—self-determination, redemption, trust, faith, etc.—that will surely affect everyone who reads this extraordinary and truly unforgettable book. An instant noir cult classic—bottle of Jameson not included."    —Paul Goat Allen, Barnes & Noble Explorations and Ransom Notes Editor