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Phineas Poe: Kiss Me Judas, Penny Dreadful, Hell's Half Acre

Average customer rating:

The Phineas Poe collection is a winner
Strange happenings...
Not Bad, Not Brilliant
Dark, Twisted, and Compelling
Dashiel Hammett meets William Burroughs

Phineas Poe: Kiss Me Judas, Penny Dreadful, Hell's Half Acre
Will Christopher Baer
Manufacturer: MacAdam/Cage Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 159692151X

Book Description

There's a girl in the hotel lobby. Long legs in a red dress. Scar at the edge of her mouth, body like a knife. I buy her a drink and wake up with staples in my side. "Don't worry," she says. "You only need one."

Disgraced junkie cop turned apocalyptic antihero Phineas Poe emerges from a psych ward on Christmas Eve and tumbles for beautiful predatory Jude, streetwise assassin turned organ thief. After one night together, she cuts him open, leaves him to fate. Reborn in a bath of ice, Phineas tracks Jude from the back alleys of Denver across the Texas desert for a violent showdown that leaves them on the run to Mexico and the debauched playgrounds of California's elite. Descend into a nightmare realm where every act of perversion finds willing disciples. Enter a world of brutal blood sport, murderous role play, existential snuff films. Lines between victim and accomplice blur past recognition only to be redrawn according to violent whim. The myth of Orpheus is deconstructed on a razorblade as Phineas and Jude chase each other through a hell of their own making.

PHINEAS POE is equal parts noir romance, revenge fantasy, suicide pact, urban myth exploded, and nihilistic tragedy.

Customer Reviews:

The Phineas Poe collection is a winner.......2007-05-10

I found all three books fun to read, intellectually fascinating, and a bit addictive. A must read for any noir fan, and an intrigue for any reader. Unusual storyline, characters, and plot twists. Will Baer has a unique writing style that adds to the flavor of the novels. Excellent service on the part of Amazon, aswell.

Strange happenings..........2007-02-20

So Phineas is an ex-cop turned junkie because someone took his liver. Weird plot, weird stories. The collection is of all 3 Phineas Poe novels by Will Christopher Baer. While I personally am not into the somewhat graphic sex scenes, they make things a little more interesting at times. If you're into crime, sex, drugs, and having your kidney cut out, along with going into a strange world of sex and overall oddities, check this out. It's a good read through and through.

Not Bad, Not Brilliant.......2007-02-06

I thought this book was going to be phenominal. And, to be fair, it started out with just the right amount of dark atmosphere and stylistic flair that I thought this book would surely be a must read. Unfortunately, after the excitement of Baer's words wear off, there isn't much actual plot to come by in this novel. Furthermore, whatever plot can be found is sometimes unexciting and hard to follow, allbeit interesting. I can say I'd recommend the first of this trilogy, Kiss Me Judas, to almost anybody, what with it's pinache and storyline. Both of these elements remain new and fresh throughout the whole book, and are the strongest they feel throughout all three of Baer's novels. However, once you get two books deep, his style and often insane plots feel more worn out than new and exciting.

Dark, Twisted, and Compelling.......2007-01-11

Phineas Poe inhabits a world in which nothing is normal, nothing is predictable, and self-destruction runs rampant. Will Christopher Baer somehow makes that combination not just appealing but compelling - once I started reading these 3 novels I didn't stop until I had finished all 900+ pages. Poe is a complete mess but I couldn't help but pull for him, and he manages to extricate himself from one dire predicament after another. I give Baer much credit for adding a unique voice to the mix.

Dashiel Hammett meets William Burroughs.......2006-07-05

This noir is absolutely fascinating. An hallucinatotry experience from beginning to end, when strange mutants, organ robbers and very dubious cops wandr in an hurban hell. William Burroughs would have liked "Penny Dreadful". a more coherent story would have made these novels perfect But surely, this book is worth reading.

Average customer rating:

An urban legend brought into novel form
re: typos
Worth reading; dark, broody ,,,poignant
Ponderous, pedantic, and pretentious
Very good...

Kiss Me, Judas
Will Christopher Baer
Manufacturer: MacAdam/Cage Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 193156180X

Amazon.com

In his extremely dark but very effective first thriller, former cabdriver and homeless counselor Will Christopher Baer takes that old urban legend of the man who wakes up in a hotel bathtub full of ice to discover that somebody has removed one of his kidneys and whips it up into a modernized Edgar Allan Poe nightmare. Baer's hero is in fact called Phineas Poe--an ex-cop who spent six years digging up dirt in and on the Denver P.D.'s Internal Affairs Division. On his first night out after a nervous breakdown and a six-month stay in a psychiatric hospital, Poe is picked up by a prostitute named Jude who drugs his drink and deftly removes his kidney.

Poe heads for the Witch's Teat, a sex shop where his friend Crumb works. "Crumb isn't really a doctor. He does cheap abortions and gunshot wounds and even dental work for the mad and desperate," Baer writes in deceptively plain present-tense prose, which quickly mesmerizes like electronic music. "Crumb reads a lot. He has a closet full of old surgical textbooks and a lot of stolen equipment. And he doesn't try to fake you. If you come to him with a ruptured bowel or a crushed spine, he gives you a cup of tea and sends you to the hospital." Poe learns that his kidney has been replaced by a bag of heroin--which could kill him if it dissolves. Intent on retrieving his stolen organ, he traces Jude to a bowling alley called the Inferno. Strangely enough, with Jude he reluctantly discovers the chance of love and family that he thought was gone forever when his wife died. In lesser hands, this flash of light in a roomful of noir could easily have spoiled everything. But Baer makes it all seem as natural as whistling in the dark. --Dick Adler

Book Description

The judgement of Phineas Poe, ex-cop, is not at its best. Just released from a psychiatric hospital, he is lured into bed by a beautiful and menacing woman who calls herself Jude. He wakes up in a hotel-room bathtub packed with ice, holding a damp note that reads, "If you want to live, call 911." Jude has stolen one of his kidneys. "Don't worry," she whispers in his dreams, "you really only need one." This brilliantly minimalist novel follows Poe--a grungy, seductive, and deeply vulnerable antihero--as he pursues the mysterious Jude and is plunged into an edgy, drug-blurred underworld where he almost feels like he's come home. Falling helplessly in love with a cruel but tender killer, he fights to avoid becoming her accomplice as well as her victim. As Kiss Me, Judas propels its cast of comic and sinister characters toward a shocking climax. This rare new voice glitters with corrosive wit and razor-sharp images that invade the mind with the arrogance and sexual intimacy of film. Will Christopher Baer doesn't describe arousal and vertigo--he evokes them. He is Jim Thompson and Mary Gaitskill read through the back-lit smoke of noir.

Customer Reviews:

An urban legend brought into novel form.......2007-05-07

Remember the urban legend about waking up in a bathtub filled with ice and the note that tells you to call 911 right away? Well, Will Christopher Baer has written a novel length story about such an urban legend.

Phineas Poe, an ex-cop teetering on the edge of sanity, meets a prostitute in a bar. The next thing he knows, he's shy $200.00 and one kidney. The girl said her name was Jude, and Poe can't get Jude out of his mind. He wants to kill her, he wants to be with her, he wants to find her. And he wants to find his kidney.

When Phineas meets up with Jude, following a note she left for him, he finds her in possession of a green cooler with a lock on it. He boards a train with Jude, takes off in a plane with Jude, checks into a hotel with Jude, all while fending off strangers such as Blister, a man who presented himself as a cop but is relentlessly following Poe. A woman names Isabel who reminds Poe of his deceased wife Lucy. And a chameleon named Henry who keeps popping up in his life. Who is Blister and what's really in that cooler? Why has Henry and Isabel taken such an interest in him? And why is Jude so dedicated to keeping him alive with his deadly wound from the kidney surgery?

You'll have to read this story to believe it. It's written in a surrealistic style, using no punctuation for dialogue. It's written like a rambling fugue from Poe's point of view. What worked for Selby doesn't always work here. At times the prose became so vague that even I couldn't follow it. Poe's thoughts travel from past to present to dreamworld in random segments, and you're often left wondering where the story is going. Still, in spite of the surrealistic, dreamlike style, the book still flows in a nice smooth line. My other major complaint would be an unfulfilling ending, but I hear that Poe continues in another book. There were a lot of questions left unanswered at the end of the book.

Overall, I give this book a solid 4 stars, especially if you're into the strange and bizarre styles - and a viable tale spun from an urban legend. Enjoy!

re: typos.......2007-03-30

For everyone wondering about the typos. This is a reprint from the original Viking release and as a consequence MacAdam/Cage had to retype the books in full. After that, someone was paid to read the book and thoroughly check/fix typos.

This man didn't do his job and the book suffered. Don't blame the Author or dock the book because of this mistake. That's all about that.

It is a very good trilogy!

Keep an eye out for GODSPEED, and the Phineas Poe comic - out soon!

Worth reading; dark, broody ,,,poignant.......2007-03-26

I think anyone else's review will be fine here. I just wanted to point out that I own the set of three matching covers (black, green, white) and enjoyed the book just fine, but was appalled to see "Kiss me, Judas" had in the upwards of 45 typos. The most shocking part was that this is republished and not even the original edition, which would've been acceptable. But you'd thnk they'd have worked out 45 typos (I quit counting) by the time a trilogy is reprinted as a set. Either way give it a read; it doesn't hinder the story.

Ponderous, pedantic, and pretentious.......2006-07-29

It's not so much that this novel is both immoral and grotesque (which it is), but that the love that is supposed to bind it together is so preposterous as to make the novel unreadable. I found myself giving up around page 100, frustrated by the all-too-precious prose and the absurd idea of a man who's had his kidney removed by a woman only to fall in love with her. I don't know about you, but there's only so far I can stretch a metaphor. Take away my kidney, and that's where I draw the line.

Very good..........2006-02-15

Aside from the lest than climactic ending, I found this to be an enjoyable read.

Average customer rating:

KISS ME, JUDAS
Will Christopher Baer
Manufacturer: Viking Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GQVOD0

Average customer rating:

Kiss Me, Judas
Will Christopher Baer
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJ4Q6Q

Kiss Me, Judas/Penny Dreadful/Hell's Half Acre

Average customer rating:

Kiss Me, Judas/Penny Dreadful/Hell's Half Acre
Christopher Baer
Manufacturer: Macadam/Cage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KW7LN2

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