Decenber 21 2011
LoiteringWithIntent: #1 in top five books of 2011
#1 – Beautiful, Naked and Dead by Josh Stallings
This is a tough, rambunctious bastard of a book which is fitting considering the build and proclivities of Stallings’ protagonist Moses McGuire. He’s an ex-con, stripper-loving hardman with a taste for drink and gun oil. There’s more than a whiff of Crumley about Moses and you get the impression he’d make a good buddy for Milo Milodragovitch if they found themselves on adjacent barstools one night. Stallings’ prose is pure noir, polished and lean, the dialogue clipped; in the world he builds anything else would feel like a lie. The plot is a classic revenge trip. Moses is tracking down the murderer of strip club waitress called Kelly, the woman he thought might fix him one day, but Stallings’ writing has more than enough depth to flesh it out. The story feels solid, underpinned with firsthand knowledge of the places and the characters he’s showing us. There are no bum notes, no mis-steps, and for me that’s the hallmark of true talent – an appearance of absolute authenticity. Book of the year.
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Friday, 18 May 2012
"Stallings has this way of writing, this brutally stunning way with words that rips a character right open in front of you - shows you it all - blood dripping, heart beating, the darkness aflame... If the days of our lives moved along on wheels of justice, Moses McGuire would be the leader of the free world, and Josh Stallings would be its poet laureate. BEAUTIFUL, NAKED & DEAD is brutal and it is magnificent."
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"Josh Stallings is the kind of writer who shouldn't have to publish for himself, but here he is slugging it out the hard way. Just like one of the hardasses in his own books. The man knows what to do with paper and ink. Read the damn thing."
-Charlie Huston
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Friday, 15 April 2011
"Author Josh Stallings is masterfully understated in his handling of the seamy underworld that is sex for sale in America… Gangster or stripper, cop or ex-con, the characters in Stallings’ world are neither heroes nor victims, deserving neither admiration nor pity. They are simply people struggling, with varying degrees of success, to make their way through the world to the best of their respective abilities…."
-Elizabeth A. White
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Tuesday, 04 October 2011
"But what rises Beautiful, Naked & Dead above the fray is the strength of the narrative voice. McGuire’s voice, as written by Stallings, is infectious, tough, vulnerable and likable. It pulls the reader along until the end like the greatest bar story ever told.."
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"Comparisons to Chandler, for once, are apt. There's a secret world of crushed idealism just beneath the surface and a jagged, rough-edged poetry here that Ray would have understood. Sure, Marlowe wouldn't have been caught dead riding herd at a jiggle joint like East L.A.'s"
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"Someone once said of Raymond Chandler that he wrote 'as if pain hurt and life mattered.' That's true of Josh Stallings, too. Hop on, kick the starter, and let him lead you on a long, painful, but entertaining ride through Moses McGuire's world. One hint: wear your helmet and your leathers. It might get messy."
-Tad Williams
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Friday, 21 October 2011
"Praise the Lord (or Satan, maybe), only six months after the publication of the very solid BEAUTIFUL, NAKED AND DEAD, there was already another Moses McGuire novel out... it's paced like a shotgun blast... A fun barnburner of a novel."
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