Bordersnakes - Hardcover

Crumley, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002326442 ISBN 13: 9780002326445

Publisher: Collins Crime, 1997

Synopsis

For the first time, the author who has reinvented the hard-boiled novel unites his two great characters – Milo Mildragovitch and C W Sughrue – teaming them on a journey that fistails through clouds of dust and pools of blood from Montana to the Texas-Mexico border.

Someone gut-shot Sughrue in New Mexico and left him to live with his demons, running naked in the blood-red desert sunset and loving the only woman who has ever managed to love him. Someone took all the money in Milodragovitch’s daddy’s will, leaving Milodragovitch with just a two-thousand-dollar silk suit and a Cadillac El Dorado – and a hard-on for retribution. Now, Sughrue and Milodragovitch, two of the most hardbitten cases the West ever produced, have come together in El Paso for a death trip across a country called Texas, to a state of mind called revenge. For Milodragovitch, it’s a matter of finding the banker who absconded with his inheritance. For Sughrue, it’s confronting the man who set him up for target practice. And for both, it’s a case that revolves around a ranch house in Austin where two people were tortured to death – and a luxurious cocaine-dusted death trap near the border.

Bordersnakes is a crime novel that careens from living hell to waking nightmare, with all the aching beauty and searing sadness that only James Crumley can deliver.

About this title

Review:

‘Wild, wicked, sweet, painful, corageous, outrageous and obscene’
New York Times

‘Reprehensible and irresistible. The ultimate adventure’
Literary Review

From the Back Cover:

James Crumley's private eye novels featuring Milo Milodragovitch and C.W. Sughrue are regarded as masterpieces of contemporary crime fiction. Now for the first time, the author who has reinvented the hardboiled novel unites his two great characters, teaming them on a journey that fishtails through clouds of dust and pools of blood from Montana to the Texaco – Mexico Border.

Someone gut shot Sughrue in New Mexico and left him to deal with his demons, running naked in the blood red desert and loving the only woman who has ever managed to love him. Someone took all the money in Milodragovitch's daddy's will, leaving Milo with just a 2,000 dollar Italian silk suit and a Cadillac El Dorado – and a hard on for retribution. Now, Sughrue and Milodragovitch, two of the most hard bitten cases the West ever produced, have come together in El Paso for a death trip across a country called Texas, to a state of mind called revenge.

For Milodragovitch, it's a matter of finding the banker who absconded with his inheritance. For Sughrue, it's all about confronting the man who set him up for target practice. And for both, it's a case that revolves around a ranch house in Austin where two people were tortured to death – and a luxurious cocaine dusted death trap near the Mexican border.

"The cult status James Crumley has gained with his thrillers helps us to understand the way in which his writing works. As with Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald, we can have a clear sense of his virtues if we look at the way he reflects his times... Crumley's ear for speech is as fine as any writer in his genre"
TLS

"Wild, wicked, sweet, painful, courageous, outrageous and obscene"
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

"One of the best crime writers in America... Devotees of Dashiel Hammett and Raymond Chandler will seize on Crumley with delight"
DAILY MAIL

"Undoubtedly the rightful heir to Chandler or Ross MacDonald"
DAILY TELEGRAPH

About this edition

• Publisher: Collins Crime
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0002326442
• ISBN 13: 9780002326445
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336