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A distraught businessman kills himself after a short, impolite conversation with a detective named Jules Bettinger. Because of this incident, the unkind (but decorated) policeman is forced to relocate himself and his family from Arizona to the frigid north, where he will work for an understaffed precinct in Victory, Missouri. This collapsed rustbelt city is a dying beast that devours itself and its inhabitants...and has done so for more than four decades. Its streets are covered with dead pigeons and there are seven hundred criminals for every law enforcer. Partnered with a boorish and demoted corporal, Bettinger investigates a double homicide in which two policemen were slain and mutilated. The detective looks for answers in the fringes of the city and also in the pasts of the cops with whom he works—men who stomped on a local drug dealer until he was disabled. Bettinger soon begins to suspect that the double homicide is not an isolated event, but a prelude to a series of cop executions... The author, S. Craig Zahler, is currently adapting Mean Business on North Ganson Street into a movie for Warner Brothers; Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio are both attached to the project.
Reviews with the most likes.
Not my favorite Zahler, but all that means is it's one of the best books I've read in years and not one of the best I've read in my entire life.
I think this is his best written, and probably most mainstream approachable work. In it his writing style has finally crystalized into what it feels like he's been trying to do all along. Everything is weighty and impactful. Mythic characters rip through with this immense gravitational wake that pulls and warps everything around them and when they collide it's cosmically devastating. Every act of violence is tragic and important.
It's also funny? Like legitimately. The voicemail in the denouement in particular is one of the most gonzo/amazing/hilarious things I've ever read, and the perfect tension-break/cherry-on-top after the titular ‘Mean Business'. I want a spinoff novella of just that character.
I loved it. Sad that I'm out of Zahler novels. Guess it's time to check out his comics.
I really hope we get some more of his movies again soon. How long have Brigands and Stone Grid been in development hell for? :/