FFB: MICHIGAN ROLL, Tom Kakonis

 

Ken Bruen’s Forgotten Book (from the archives)

Michigan Roll by Tom Kakonis

The great neglected forgotten writer in my opinion is Tom Kakonis.
He wrote a wondrous series of novels featuring an ex professor who'd served time and is now eking out a precarious existence in Las Vegas under the dubious mentorship of a very shady acquaintance.
The writing is dark dangerous poetry and the violence when it comes, is sharp and shocking, an air of doomed menace looms over the novels like a palpable cloud.
Michigan Roll, perhaps the very best in the series,, is a true forgotten classic.
Kakonis abandoned this stunning series and now writes under a different name.
The atmosphere of being damned, of no hope, of no redemption is noir like you rarely read.
The characterisation is superb and the sheer agony of seeing a decent man who never caught a break and knows he is screwed is heart wrenching.