Overview
Ryan Rossetti and Jake Thomas were the two Major League-bound rivals on their high school baseball team, heading straight into history as the first two of Canarsie's favorite sons to make it out and make it big. Until Ryan hurt his pitching arm and landed a ten-dollar-an-hour life as a house painter. Lucky Jake made it all the way, and he and his ten-million-dollar signing bonus are heading back for a publicity-motivated homecoming weekend that has all of Brooklyn waiting to explode in celebration.
But he's got a nasty surprise in store: Ryan is involved in an intense, addictive relationship with Jake's fiancée Christina, who now faces a choice between love in a Brooklyn tenement or a heartless marriage on Easy Street. Lights Out is vintage Jason Starr, a razor-sharp crime novel that brilliantly combines biting social satire, explosive suspense, and honest, revealing human drama.
Synopsis
Praise for Jason Starr and Lights Out
"Lights Out has the New York sound, the energy, dialogue that's on the beat…. Read it and you'll go hunting for Jason Starr's other books, I promise."—Elmore Leonard, author of The Hot Kid
"Jason Starr is the real deal in a world where a lot of people are faking it, a fearless, pitiless writer. The result is a compelling, fierce body of work by a prodigious talent."—Laura Lippman, author of To the Power of Three
"Jason Starr is hypnotically good—-if you miss him, you're missing some of the best new writing there is."—Lee Child, author of One Shot: A Jack Reacher Novel
"Jason Starr is a leader in the new noir movement."—George Pelecanos, author of Drama City
"Lights Out is compulsively readable, sidesplittingly funny and absolutely merciless. . . . Starr's fresh take on our flawed human condition may bring howls of outrage but in the tradition of the great satirists, you can't stop reading."—Denise Hamilton, author of Prisoner of Memory
Publishers Weekly
In this strangely fascinating riff off classic noir, baseball slugger Jake Thomas gets a hero's welcome on a quick trip home to Canarsie. With millions in endorsements on the line, he's anxious to announce a wedding date with his high school sweetheart, Christina, hoping to counteract a statutory rape claim that's about to go public. But his fianc e has been seeing former pitcher Ryan Rossetti, who blew out his arm and now works a dead-end job as a house painter. Insanely jealous of the "J.T. fever" sweeping the hood, the self-involved Ryan is determined to keep Christina for himself. Starr (Twisted City) is a master at portraying Brooklyn as a dark corner of hell (and even gives genre fans a taste of one of the sexual obsessions of past noir master David Goodis), but J.T and Ryan prove almost too unpleasant to take. When the ex-con Saiquan comes into play, riding along for some payback on a gang shooting, the plot jumps into overdrive and heads mercilessly for Starr's always bleak finish line. Author tour. (Sept.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewThe glitzy world of major league baseball meets the mean streets of Brooklyn in Jason Starr's noir thriller, Lights Out -- a novel about two Canarsie baseball prodigies: one who made it to the big leagues and another who, plagued by injury, now works as a housepainter and still lives with his bickering parents in the old neighborhood.
Jake "J.T." Thomas, multimillionaire outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates and reigning National League batting champion, is returning home to Brooklyn for what he believes to be a quiet weekend visit. But old friends, family members, and fans of all ages have come out of the woodwork to get a glimpse of the handsome young superstar. Huge banners welcome J.T., and news of his arrival is on every local television channel -- which infuriates Ryan Rossetti to no end. Rossetti, an old teammate of J.T.'s who once had just as much major league potential until an elbow injury ended his playing days forever, sees in J.T. everything that he rightfully deserves but doesn't have -- fame, fortune, adoration, etc. Rossetti, however, does possess one thing that Thomas never will: the love of Christina Mercado, J.T.'s high school sweetheart and current fiancée. This is the weekend that Christina is going to break up with the womanizing megastar and finally end their fiasco of a relationship so that she can start her life with Rossetti. But instead of ending it as planned, Christina and J.T. set a wedding date! Thus begins a series of events that includes psychotic crackhead gangbangers, more than a few sex scandals, and multiple bloody murders.
Lights Out moves like an out-of-control nitrous oxideinjected muscle car with no brakes. Strap yourself in and prepare for one helluva wild ride… Paul Goat Allen