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Stark: A Novel$26.95 add to cart

Edward Bunker is one of the acknowledged masters of crime fiction. His varied and interesting life saw him become the youngest ever inmate of San Quentin at the age of seventeen, befriend authors such as Aldous Huxley and Tennessee Williams, and influence a generation of crime fiction devotees including Quentin Tarantino and James Ellroy. Stark, Bunker's first novel, was written in the late 1960's and discovered after Bunker's death in 2005.

Ernie Stark is the titular protagonist, a junk-addicted grifter under the thumb of a vice cop who's the last line of defense between Stark and a return to the joint. As Stark runs from score to score, dodging the law and the suspicions of his fellow crooks, he gets caught between his dealer's supplier ("The Man") and a vicious Mexican Cartel. He is also caught between the sheets with his dealer's girl, a beautiful addict.

At just over 200 pages, Stark is short on words but long on what matters: prose as tough as its author, and an honest uncompromising look at the grasping life of a street grifter. Bunker's research was his life, and it shows. His is a seedier, dirtier California than Chandler's or Hammett's, but every bit as vital and true to its time.