Gentlemen (and ladies) prefer The Blonde …
“Two parts adrenaline rush, one part medical thriller, this twisted story starts with a bang and rarely slows down. Full of offbeat characters, excruciatingly reckless twists, and sardonic humor, this fun ride shows great promise for a rising author.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“This is delicious postmodern hard-boiled punk rock storytelling. Swierczynski’s hit man character is as funny and fresh as he is fierce and quick. The Blonde is masterfully paced, wonderfully rendered, and devastatingly entertaining.”
—Greg Rucka,
Eisner Award-winning author of Queen & Country and
2006 Barry Award-nominated thriller Private Wars
“[An] entertaining thriller … rapid-fire pacing, hard-boiled dialogue, and excellent local color.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Duane Swierczynski’s new novel, The Blonde, is as lean as a starving model, mean as a snake, and fast as a jet. It’s also one hell of a fine read. This guy has got to be the hottest new thing in crime fiction, and The Blonde is one of the best crime reads I’ve had in some time.”
—Joe R. Lansdale, Edgar Award-winning author of Sunset and Sawdust
“Page-turning tension … a story so bizarre that it just might be true.”
—Kirkus Reviezvs
“The Blonde had me at hello. Well, technically she had me at ‘I poisoned your drink.’ It’s a hilarious nail-biter, a tour-de-force by a young writer who has already carved out this unique take on the crime genre so it’s futile to compare it to anything else, or try to come up with those weird combinations, such as if X married Y while on Drug Z, their baby might come out looking like The Blonde. It is sui generis. It is perfect.”
—Laura Lippman, bestselling author of What the Dead Know
“Another fast, funny, and action-packed outing from a writer who, fortunately for us, doesn’t seem to know how to slow down.”
—Booklist
“I’ve rarely seen a review where the word adore was used. I adored this novel. The opening few pages are sheer brilliant—black as sin, [with] demented laugh-out-loud tension. Dialogue to sell your soul for and an array of characters as weird and wondrous as anything Hiassen ever conceived. This is new noir: neon lit with marvelous beautiful writing. And okay, I fess up … I fell in love with The Blonde. Jeez, I’d let her poison me any day.”
—Ken Bruen,
Shamus Award-winning author of Calibre and American Skin
“Quite a ride. The prose is hard-boiled enough to crack walnuts and the action more precipitous than a bobsled run.”
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Insanely inventive. This inspired high-concept thriller rockets from climax to climax with an intensity that will leave you breathless. It’s like the movie Speed—only with brains.”
—Charles Ardai,
editor of the Hard Case Crime series
“The Blonde … rockets forward with inventive ferocity. [The] double helix of a plot uncoils in a rapid-fire series of time-coded moments that generate a relentless tension … brilliantly paced insanity.”
—The Houston Chronicle
“I got whiplash from turning these pages so fast. The cleverest, wittiest, and most relentless novel I’ve read in a long, long time. A dazzling piece of work.”
—Ed Gorman, award-winning author of the Sam McCain mysteries
“Mr. Swierczynski knows how to streamline a story, keep the pace breakneck, sucking all the oxygen out of the room while he tells you this very gritty and nervy story about a pick-up gone wrong. Delicious dialogue, funny realizations, and one hell of a ride.”
—Frank Bascombe, Ainh It Cool News
“The Blonde is a shot of pure noir adrenaline for the twenty-first century. It left me battered, bruised, bleeding, dazed, confused, and down-right goofy. And all I did was read it! Think how the poor characters must feel. Duane Swierczynski writes the way Sam Peckinpah used to direct: with a mad passion to awaken the slumbering masses and energize them with his enthusiasm for the material at hand. The Blonde rocks!”
—Terrill Lee Lankford, author of Earthquake Weather and Blonde Lightning
“The Blonde will be the most madcap, mordantly funny, and completely mesmerizing novel you will read this year.”
—Mystery News
“A frenzied, surreal, gore-splattered exploration into the dark side of humanity’s psyche—from our self-absorbed dreams to our twisted obsessions and addictions. The Blonde is wild, fast, and breathtakingly bodacious—an absolute bombshell of a read.”
—Paul Goat Allen, Barnes & Noble
“Swierczynski’s lean writing is gritty and darkly comédie. The Blonde is riveting from the first page to the last.”
—Mystery Scene
“Swierczynski’s follow-up to The Wheelman—my favorite book of 2005— is a high-concept thriller that’s a master class in succinct, imaginative, intelligent, suspenseful writing. The characters are fresh, the action is original, the pace is relentless, and the central premise is a doozy.”
—Allan Guthrie, Edgar-nominated author of Hard Man
“Pure pulp-fiction popcorn, in all the best ways—simply one of the most ripsnorting reads of the year. Hook up with this blonde as soon as you can.”
—Kevin Burton Smith,
January magazine’s Best Crime Fiction of 2006 list
Also by Duane Swierczynski
The Wheelman
Secret Dead Men
Damn Near Dead (editor)
THE
BLONDE
Duane
Swierczynski
To Sunshine, the other redhead in my life
It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.
— RAYMOND CHANDLER
9:13 p.m.
Liberties Bar,
Philadelphia International Airport
I poisoned your drink.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“Urn, I don’t think I did.”
The blonde lifted her cosmopolitan. “Cheers.”