The Sunday Salon and a beautiful hunk of heartbreak

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First things first: I just hooked up with Debra Hamel’s group of Sunday readers/bloggers who post up thoughts and stuff about what they’ve got their noses into.

There’s nothing to it… I figured I’d be reading and writing on Sundays anyhoo. Check it out and sign up. Once you do, Deb adds your RSS feed to the group’s Yahoo Pipe. Then that gets blasted out into the world for all to aggregate.

It’s a nice way to be social and learn about some great reads from people around the globe.

That said, I’ve been working my way through Steven Torres’s latest, THE CONCRETE MAZE. Two words: it’s fan-freaking-tastic. (Yes, the hyphens make it one word!)

A while back, I’d read DEATH IN PRECINCT PUERTO RICO and wasn’t bowled over by it. I liked it, yes. But it wasn’t spectacular.

Enter THE CONCRETE MAZE. It’s absolute noir, with enough hardboiled mixed in to keep everything dissonant and honest. What’s more, Torres’s prose is tight as a gnat’s ass, quite frankly.

I’m a little more than half done with this one and I’m finding—as I did with a number of books I’ve adored—myself wanting to slow down so I don’t finish it too soon. I’m lost in his slice of New York, a bent mixture of drugs and pimps and whores and dealers brought to life with a largely Puerto Rican cast.

As I’d mentioned back in April, Torres is masterful at creating characters who pop off the page, grab you by the arm, and say, “Let’s go for a ride. But, buckle up, because the shit’s gonna get deep.”

This book is dead serious and heartbreaking right from page one. I’ll post more about this book when I write the review.

Meantime, here’s a list of blogs to visit:

Tags: Debra Hamel, hardboiled, noir, Steven-Torres, THE CONCRETE MAZE, The Sunday Salon