Book review: Ben Sanders' noir perfection

Crime writer Ben Sanders follows his best-selling American Blood with the gritty, neon-lit Marshall's Law. Photographed at Fed Deli in Auckland, 2016. Photo by Ted Baghurst.

Greg Fleming reviews Ben Sanders' second American-based novel Marshall's Law

Marshall's Law
Ben Sanders (Allen & Unwin $32.99)

Marshall Grade's back and he's a hunted man.
Shooting - and not killing - the New York crime boss's daughter you were having an affair with - will do that.
Marshall's been holed up in small town California taking art classes, but when fellow federal agent Lucas Cohen - the aw-shucks hero of American Blood - is held up - Marshall realises his brush work will have to wait.
Last year's best-selling American Blood introduced ex-undercover cop Grade and brought Auckland's hottest crime writer to an international audience.
After three Auckland-based novels the change of scene energised Sanders - ratcheting up his already electric prose.
When Sanders writes action you get it second-by-second, in cinematic and geographic detail.
The set-pieces here explode off the page.
This is gritty, neon-lit New York noir - populated with compelling low-lifes - Perry Rhodes, his violent half-brother Tolson, the corrupt businessman Dexter Vine (owes the Chinese 5 mill - same as the ransom on Marshall's head), the heroin dealer Henry Lee (named after the Nick Cave song; the guy's got a thing for the colour white; clothes, cars and powder), lost ex-d Lana, thug mummy's boy Ludo Coltrane.
Sanders' skill at creating vivid characters with note-perfect names continues.
Take small-time hood Perry - he's just trying to get by, has a wife and kids, a mortgage to pay.
His wife tells him - "Last time you started worrying, you ended up doing two years... So I'd say if you've got problems, you're best doing nothing at all."
But of course Perry pockets the gun and goes to the meet.
Sanders is great at capturing this blue-collar underworld, rustling up smart takes on noir staples.
Some readers may find the quantity of characters - and Sanders' penchant for switching between them in chapters hard going - but, like all his books, it repays second and third readings.
"Do you ever think your life's just this bizarre thing?" asks one character early in the piece - but few are capable of that much self-reflection. Everyone in Marshall's Law does what they think's best for them knowing it probably isn't - even Marshall himself. Bizarre and all too real.
This is superior crime fiction with an old-school noir heart, written with a ferocity that should make the big-boys of the genre sit up and take notice.
No-one here's due a happy ending - even the few who get out alive.