Tower

Ken Bruen is one of my favorite authors, and though I don't know anything about his collaborator, I knew I had to read this book because of my prior experience with Mr. Bruen's work. I am very happy that I did, as this book is simply excellent! The plot concerns two friends, one Jewish and the other Irish. Mr. Bruen writes the part of the book about the Irish fellow and his co-author does the same for the Jewish gentleman... Read Full Review

"Tower," the gritty crime fiction collaboration of authors Ken Bruen and Reed Farrel Coleman, is a special little book. Seldom has so much violence, irony, black humor, and sheer atmosphere been packed into only 172 pages. As a longtime fan of Ken Bruen's Jack Taylor novels, I would expect no less from his half of the book, but I was happy to discover that Reed Farrel Coleman's portion of the novel is the perfect compliment... Read Full Review

This collaboration is reminiscent of the old time gritty hard-boiled P.I. novels. Told in two halves by the two main characters, the second part is superior to the first, but that is not to diminish hte first half. Todd and Nick tell the same story from their own, often contradictory perspectives. The main characters are boyhood friends who grow up to become small-time Brooklyn hoods working for the Irish mob (even though... Read Full Review

TOWER is the book I had been waiting for all year. Ken Bruen is the Irish dark angel who, for the past several years, has carved a new and distinctive niche into the crime fiction genre. And Reed Farrel Coleman is a writer's writer, a master of noir crime fiction whose name is on the must-read list of all who have cracked the binding of one of his books. The news of a collaboration between the two men meant that the end result... Read Full Review

TOWER stands in a class of its own. This is a short novel with a break-neck speed, so hang on tight because it will grab you by the soul. Coleman and Bruen managed to blend their styles flawlessly, but still enable the reader to hear echos of each individual. TOWER is filled with dark humor, poetic language, dimensional characters, and not least of all, a plot that lights the book on fire. It's gritty and it stays with you... Read Full Review