The Blade This Time
“A riveting, tightly woven masterpiece of hard-boiled loneliness, I was held mesmerized by it. Part Charlie Huston, part Henry Miller, with a sprinkling of Bukowski, this is a novel you will not want to miss.”
Vincent Zandri, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author
A man wakes to find himself below ground in the abandoned subway stations of New York City. He has no idea how he got there, no idea who he is. In his pocket he finds only a wad of blood-stained cash and a deck of playing cards.
Once above ground, he rents out a cheap apartment, previously occupied by an enigmatic artist named Max Leider who'd left most everything behind-books, clothes, personal letters. But most peculiar are a series of paintings, each one of a mysterious woman hidden behind a curtain.
Without an identity of his own, the man becomes fascinated with Leider. He begins wearing his clothes. He begins painting on his canvases. He begins taking on his obsessions. But as his persona fully transforms into Max Leider, he will find some horrifying truths about the artist … and himself.
Praise