I loved the one before with the same characters. I tried to get through this but kept losing interest. Dropped it half way through. Not recommending it to anyone. ( )

I have a nasty habit of discovering excellent series in the middle. Very seldom am I lucky enough to read a novel with characters and situations that I thoroughly enjoy, and then later discover that they have been carried over into new novels. Instead, what often happens is that I find out a book I liked is from the middle (or sometimes end) of an excellent series, and I am forced to backtrack and collect the previous books.

Needless to say, I was not lucky enough to catch Manny Rupert, Jerry Stahl's flighty ex-cop drug addict turned private detective, in his first book, Plainclothes Naked. However, Pain Killers is only the second novel in a what will hopefully be a longer series.

Stahl's writing has always had an edge to it. Not surprising, considering that his real life exploits (as recounted in Permanent Midnight: A Memoir) have been a tad edgy themselves. But it isn't the edge that makes Stahl's writing so good. It is the way he manages to combine it with a dark humor that doesn't flinch at the ugliness unfolding around it. A drug addict ex-policeman posing as prison rehab counselor in order to investigate a possible ex-Nazi in hiding shouldn't be funny. But then Stahl throws lines at you like "If I were a pedophile, I'd paint kittens." He knows what shouldn't be funny, and he knows how to make you laugh at it.

Manny Rupert isn't the kind of hero you root for because he's one of the good guys. He's the guy you root for because, as depraved as he is, he's nowhere near as bad as the people he is surrounded by. Besides, at least he can see the humor of it all, as bitter as it may be. If you're like me, and prefer your leading man to be less than perfect, you'll definitely want to pick up a copy of Pain Killers. ( )

Let me begin by saying this is a weird book. I generally enjoy wired book because books are supposed to take you into an alternate reality right?

This book however makes Kafka look tame by comparison. The premise is that A man in hired to go undercover to see if a prison guard is really a Nazi Camp guard in hiding. It delves into the world of drug addicts and prostitution and other underbelly activities. It takes twist and turns that no reader could have anticipated. It has dark undertones throughout the book. It also has a good psychological bent as it explores the dark side of human nature. It was entertaining to be able to see that whole spectrum without actually being in any harm. He also injects humor into his subject so you don't feel as if he is dragging you down. Some books after you have read them leave you feeling more depressed than you were before reading them. Not so with Pain Killers.

When I arrived at the end of the book I was like what?! huh? That is a good thing in my opinion. Not many books have that ability. A book that takes you on a ride has accomplished its purpose. ( )

This book should have been a book I loved. It reminded of writers that I really enjoy like Charlie Huston, James Ellroy, Andrew Vachss, Joe R. Lansdale, and more. It has that blend of fast-paced humor and violence that I dig.

But towards the end of the book, there were scenes that just dragged on and on. They were presented under the guise of dialog, but it was mostly one character droning on and on about things. It was as if Stahl had a bunch of stuff he had thought up (or perhaps researched) that he felt the reader needed to know, but it didn't really add to the story.

The most distressing thing about this was that Stahl had spent the whole novel up to that point painting the villains and pseudo-bad guys as very smart and clever, and these scenes just felt dumb. Once I got to this point, then the general absurdity of the novel (which I had been enjoying) started to bug me, too.

It got me worried about how he was going to wrap the book up. The ending was actually very rewarding, and worked a lot better than I thought it might. I'd certainly check out other book by Stahl, but if too many of them are like this I might have to pass on them in the future. ( )

I received this book free through the LibraryThing Early Readers Program.

Manny Rupert, an addict, a cop kicked off the force, an the ex-husband of a murderer, is back for round two. This time he's been hired to go undercover in San Quentin and determine whether a sick old man in for vehicular manslaughter is really who he claims to be—the infamous Nazi Doctor of Death, Joseph Mengele.

That's where Pain Killers starts, but where it goes is on an insane, gritty, noir venture through the darkest parts of society. Pain Killers is a humorous black romp if by humorous you mean “Oh my God they went there” and by romp you mean going by limo from prison snail back love shack to Christian porn sets to meth houses and mansions and back again. This novel is, to steal a line, truly, truly outrageous.

Stahl's humor is not for everyone, possibly not for anyone that possesses an iota of sensitivity about religion, psychology, the human condition, addiction, sex, or just about any subject. But there's a sort of victorious feel to seeing character so truly messed up still intelligent and stubborn and taking on the face of human evil. There's more talking than action, so the pace is not forceful or fast. At times the conversations while interesting and amusing come off as off topic, when the point is to solve a mystery. And the WTF factor is, at times, very high. But it's a wild ride, different from everything else out there which certainly has an audience in today's marketplace. ( )