Sharing Credit, And Blame

For motion pictures and television, it is common to have writers collaborate. With different strengths, each may contribute to a scenario that becomes both richer and seamless for the viewer.

No one could know which bit of dialogue in the film version of Raymond Chandler's "The Big Sleep" was written by William Faulkner and which by Leigh Brackett. No one cares which screenwriter executed the memorable lines of "Double Indemnity," Billy Wilder or Chandler, or even if they were lifted whole from James M. Cain's novel. Television's unparalleled writing duo of Richard Levinson and William Link collaborated on "Columbo," "Ellery Queen," and "Murder She Wrote" so cohesively that even they didn't know who wrote what, functioning like a single brain stored in two bodies.

With novels, however, it's a bit trickier, and rarely does the sum of the participants create a greater whole than individual efforts. Would collaborative works have achieved the same classic status as the individual novels of Hammett, Chandler, Ross Macdonald, or Agatha Christie? Call me closed-minded, but I doubt it.

No one claims that Dorothy L. Sayers's masterpiece is "The Documents in the Case," which she wrote with Robert Eustace, nor that John D. MacDonald's finest hour was "Nothing Can Go Wrong," written with John Kilpack.

With this history, one has to wonder what motivated Ken Bruen and Jason Starr, two of the shining lights of contemporary noir fiction, to share bylines on paperback originals "Bust" (Hard Case, 254 pages, $6.95) and "Slide" (Hard Case, 222 pages, $6.95).

This is not to say they are failures, not by a long stretch. Compared to most collaborative works of fiction, in fact, they are very readable in their own vulgar, demented, violent, twisted, amoral, and hilarious way. If you like this sort of thing (and, to my shame, I do), you will love these books, which means there is something seriously wrong with you.

In "Bust," which could have been written in the 1950s except for the graphic obscenity, violence, and sex, the familiar-bordering-on-trite plot features a wealthy New York businessman, Max Fisher, who gets so worked up over his sexy secretary, Angela Petrakos, that he decides to kill his wife so that he and the buxom beauty can live happily ever after.

It will come as a surprise only to the truly dim that Angela isn't truly and deeply in love with Max, focusing on his money more than his charm. When she introduces him to a former IRA hit man who can get rid of the wife who stands between them and eternal wedded bliss, she neglects to mention that the psychopathic killer-for-hire also happens to be her boyfriend. As is the nature of noir fiction, especially in the hands of Mr. Bruen and Mr. Starr, plans don't work out quite as hoped, and happy endings are as rare as charismatic actuaries.

In "Slide," Max and Angela are back, though not together. In fact, they are as not together as it is possible to be, each nurturing a resentful hatred that burns as ferociously as a world-class attack of a sexually transmitted disease.

Max has hit bottom, waking up in a motel room in Alabama with the king of all hangovers. When he learns that the reception clerk deals drugs, he convinces him to be his supplier and quickly ascends back up to the financial position he knows he deserves. Setting himself up in a fancy apartment in New York with his private, 24-hour-a-day hooker, he now calls himself the M.A.X.

Angela, meanwhile, has gone off to Ireland, where she has hooked up with Slide, whose major goal in life is to be the greatest serial killer of all time. When he learns that the Rolling Stones will visit Dublin, he decides to finance his career by kidnapping Mick Jagger or Keith Richards. The genius mistakenly nabs a mystery writer with a strong resemblance to Mr. Bruen instead of the rock star.

The New York chapters are clearly written by Mr. Starr, and the Irish chapters by Mr. Bruen, and they obviously had a lot of fun writing the outrageous scenes, the over-the-top violence and obscenity, and some of the funniest dialogue this side of Elmore Leonard. The books aren't for anyone easily offended — nor for anyone offended with difficulty, come to think of it. For the rest of us, they are a blast.

Mr. Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan and the series editor of the annual "Best American Mystery Stories." He can be reached at ottopenzler@mysteriousbookshop.com.