Dead Money

✍ Scribed by Ray Banks

• Publisher: Blasted Heath
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 101 KB
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

Double-glazing salesman Alan Slater is in trouble. He hasn't had a good sales lead in months. His wife rightly suspects him of playing around. His best mate Les Beale has turned into a bigoted, boozed-up headcase. And that's the least of it.

When a rigged poker game has fatal consequences, Alan finds himself not only responsible for the clean-up, but also for Beale's escalating debt to a man who won't take “broke” for an answer.

As Beale's life spirals out of control, he becomes ever more desperately reliant on Alan to save his skin. But Alan isn't about to be dragged into the gutter by anyone, least of all his bad-beat, dead money former mate.

After all, there's no such thing as a compassionate double-glazing salesman.

What they’re saying…

“Memorable characterisation, Manchester at night and at its most sinister, lives flooding down the plughole – this is British noir in all its sordid splendour by a writer who has taken more than just an excursion to the dark side.”
– The Guardian

"A pitch perfect novel"
– Crime Fiction Lover

"Brimming with pitch-black humour and written with a claustrophobic mania to rival the finest noir exponents, it's compelling and finely honed stuff."
– The Big Issue

"Dark, nasty, funny, and painfully human"
– Spinetingler Magazine

"A tight and pacy read, the prose stripped to the bone and the dialogue pitch-perfect. Fans of Colin Bateman and Elmore Leonard will find it hits their sweet spot. Cohen brother lovers; one for you too."
– Loitering With Intent

"A great story. It's tight as hell and it's so deliberate that it's a complete joy to read... I loved Dead Money "
– Dead End Follies

"An intensive masterclass in how to write."
– Helen FitzGerald

"Banks writes in a clean style, looped with inky black humor, and the plot goes at a lightning pace, heaping dread upon dread."
– On The Book Beat

"Dead Money is a quick read and a thoroughly enjoyable one, a Guy Ritchie film in prose, minus a lot of the showing off."
– Kate of Mind

From the author…

“ Dead Money is a crime novel about an amoral double-glazing salesman who spends most of the novel drinking, gambling, cheating on his wife and dealing with the aftermath of his mate’s disastrous people skills. In short, he’s every inch your sympathetic hero. Ahem.

“Actually, he represents – for me, anyway – your average thirtysomething male up to his eyes in a mid-life crisis, which makes for an effective noir protagonist. Dead Money was originally written with a view to melding Jim Thompson and Ken Loach into one quick and nasty read. Basically, I set out to write something that I desperately wanted to read and, in that respect, it’s the template for everything I’ve written since.”

Praise for Ray Banks…

"Ray Banks writes with harshness, humour and elegance, and his punchy dialogue teems with vigorous authenticity."
– The Times

"Banks is one of the freshest voices in hard-boiled crime fiction today."
– Library Journal

"Banks has an ear for the vernacular as sharp as, but a shade or two bluer than, that of George V. Higgins. Let the squeamish stick with Tony Soprano; this is the real tough stuff."
– Kirkus

Ray Banks is the author of the Cal Innes Quartet (Saturday's Child, Donkey Punch, No More Heroes, Beast Of Burden) and the novellas, Gun and California. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.