Fake I.D.

by Jason Starr

Book Overview

A bar bouncer needs $10,000 to buy into a horse racing syndicate and will stop at nothing to get it ? not robbery, not even murder? This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 084396118X
• ISBN13: 9780843961188
• Release Date: January 2009
• Publisher: Hard Crime Case
• Length: 251 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 4.1" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Haunting and Brilliant!

New York bar bouncer Tommy Russo dreams of making it big but his acting career is going nowhere. When a man approaches him with a plan to turn him from losing gambler to race horse owner, Tommy brushes him off at first. But he just can't resist and soon begs for more details. All he needs is $10,000 to buy into a syndicate and turn his life around. The one little kink in the plan is his lack of money. If he can find the money, he will finally be a winner and achieve the envied looks of others. No longer will he be the loser at the tracks. Despite some of the troubling details which might trigger second thoughts, Tommy sets about making his dream come true. As Tommy follows his determined one-track plan, other areas of his life take a turn for the better...but can Tommy see the opportunities before him? Jason Starr's FAKE I.D. easily takes the reader into Tommy's thoughts, aligning the reader with first person narrator, almost against one's natural inclination, hoping against all hope that Tommy will awaken to the events around him. Unlikable Tommy is a likable guy in spite of himself and all his less than savory characteristics. One can't help but root for him and yet his thoughts provide a chilling look into distorted thinking. Jason Starr creates a riveting setting for his character, giving this crime story a depth and vision beyond just the story of the downfall of one small time gambler. As Tommy heads down his narrow path with blinders on his eyes, circumstances and characters around him create a direction counter to his actions, magnifying the sense of his downfall. Hope and opportunity seem just around the corner but Tommy's obsession prevents him stepping outside his own mindset to see the goodness around him. FAKE I.D. is a thrilling spiral into the darker side of life, of ambition turned sinister and oblivious to all but a chance on the easy win. Just when one thinks things can't possibly get worse, they do. Just when it seems Tommy can't plunge any further down, he does. Jason Starr does an excellent job in the creation of his characters, not only the main character of Tommy but also in every minute detail of the secondary characters from the men in the syndicate to those in the bar, from clothing to the mindset and motivations of his characters. Every detail of characterization adds drama and a richness to this crime tale. The relationship between Tommy and Frank, the bar owner, gives a stunning dimension to Jason Starr's characterization and the story's world-building. Their encounters evoke emotion, suspense and a tension-filled dynamic of trust and mistrust. From the very beginning, FAKE I.D. grabs ahold of a reader's imagination and doesn't let go until the last closing dramatic dark, twisted moments. What a magnificent ending! Jason Starr packs so much into this crime story that Tommy's story will haunt a reader long after the first page. Brilliant! COURTESY OF BOOK ILLUMINATIONS

It's Almost Impossible to Do FAKE I.D. Its Proper Justice

Jason Starr is the link between Richard Prather and Albert Camus. His work is compellingly readable, his characterization frighteningly deep. While one does not pick up and begin a Starr novel without finishing it in one reading, often in a single afternoon, paragraphs and individuals resonate and linger for days, weeks, months and beyond. His characters and their situations are infused with a real-world viability, a world of bad choices leading to worse acts that result in disastrous consequences. It is impossible to predict what will happen as Starr sends them into head-on collisions with each other, collisions that are anything but accidental. Starr has just published FAKE I.D. through Hard Case Crime, a perfect pairing for both the book and the publisher. This is actually his third novel, written in 2000 but just seeing its U.S. publication in 2009. The erstwhile protagonist is Tommy Russo, who narrates the story from its beginning to its almost preordained ending. This narrative viewpoint is especially appropriate because Russo is most definitely the center of his own universe, a cold practitioner of situational ethics whose actions are informed by the cold justification of whatever form necessity might take. Russo is in his early 30s working as a bouncer in a fairly popular Manhattan bar. He sees himself as an actor who almost had a shot at stardom and who is marking time until his next big break. A pivotal scene features Russo attending an audition for a commercial; Starr's description of the event, from the narrator's point of view, is by turns revealing, informative, heartbreaking and chilling, all within the space of a few paragraphs. It's not a major event, in the sense that the world is going to keep turning and the sun will come up tomorrow, but you can sense that it was almost predestined. Russo is also addicted to gambling, and his pursuit of the big win (or even a minor one) is chilling in its single-mindedness. Even though Russo is a thoroughly unlikable character, one can't help but scream at him as he makes what is obviously bad move after bad move. There is a tragedy here, given that Russo is possessed of an animal magnetism that is appealing to the women who are unfortunate enough to be attracted to him. Furthermore, he is blessed with some marketable and useful skills, including an uncanny knack for mathematics and for teaching. These talents, exhibited briefly in the book, make one wonder if, with a bit of a nudge here or a diversion there early in life, Russo could have been something, or someone, else. But such a possibility seems doubtful. For Russo is more than a gambling addict; he is a sociopath who is capable of doing literally anything to get what he wants. It is ultimately Russo's gambling addiction that sets up the motivation behind the events of FAKE I.D. At the track, Russo runs into a distant acquaintance who offers him a spot in a syndicate interested in purchasing a racehorse. The price for a chair at the

Blood Chilling

I don't know that much about crime author Jason Starr, but I'm confident he's turned over rocks at midnight in dark alleys most people wouldn't go at high noon. Starr has a real knack for getting into the twisted and brutal psyche of fringe dwellers, like the one he introduces in his latest novel, FAKE I. D. Tommy Russo is a sometime actor, a full-time bartender, and a gambling addict that never met a losing horse he wouldn't bet on. Or anything else that would lose for that matter. Starr presents this character almost sympathetically in the beginning, showing that maybe he's just had some bad breaks, and probably he has. But the novel picks up right as those fissures in the character become gaping chasms and boost Russo to the point of no return. Despite his faults, everyone seems to like Russo, and I believed it. I've met guys like Russo who are likeable yet deeply flawed. Starr manages to show both sides of his character, and his first-person voice detailing Russo's thought processes and rationales for what he's doing is fantastic. While I turned the pages, Russo was a living, breathing person for me. I hung out with him at the track, felt his frustrations at the commercial audition, and got to know everyone at O'Reilly's bar where he worked. But even as I got to know him, I became afraid for him and of what he was going to do. Starr really puts the pressure on his character and piles up bad luck as well as bad choices till it all hits the fan. The last half of the book is tightly written and keeps the reader on his toes, like watching a car wreck happen in slow motion. The dialogue is great, and Starr demonstrates that he has a fantastic ear for listening to other people speak. So many of the characters in the book that surround Russo are defined by their conversations with him and how they treat him. The relationships, especially the one with bar owner Frank O'Reilly, are especially well done. Guys like Tommy Russo attract the crowd he runs with, and no one is safe. The plot hangs together well, and there is a lot of side action taking place on the table as well. It's Russo's temptation to own 20 percent of a racehorse that really spurs the story on to the finish line. As everything falls apart around him, he becomes convinced that owning that horse will change his luck and his life. The book is spare and lean, and the story is actually a small one, but Starr throws it at his readers like a vicious left hook that will leave the audience reeling, turning pages late into the night.

Well-written noir novel

I've read and enjoyed collaborations by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr. I've read and enjoyed books by Ken Bruen. Does it naturally follow that I would enjoy a solo effort by Starr? No, but as it turns out, I did. Fake I.D. is narrated by Tommy Russo, a bar bouncer with a gambling habit. Although superficially a nice guy, his actual behavior is pretty awful, as the novel slowly discloses. As the novel opens, he meets an old acquaintance who gives the perpetually broke Tommy a golden opportunity, a chance to buy in on a share of a racehorse. The only problem is that it requires $10,000, which is around $9900 more than he can scrounge up. Tommy, however, is a person who is willing to do anything to get this money, starting with petty theft and graduating to grand larceny and worse. He only has a couple strengths to rely on: he is physically strong (hence his job) and though he can never land any roles, he's a decent actor, allowing him to lie with great ease. Admittedly, I am unclear as to what the title is referring to, as Tommy never really adopts a false guise, but it makes little difference. As in the great noir stories (whether cinematic or literary), Fake I.D. is the tale of a character who is done in by fate and his own personal flaws, drawing him into deeper and deeper trouble until it seems there is no way out. This is a tightly written page-turner, a minor masterpiece of pulp fiction.

Shockingly good

I didn't have any expectations going into this month's Hard Case Crime release, since I'd never heard of Jason Starr before. What I've been missing! "Fake I.D." begins innocuously. Tommy Russo is a part-time actor & building superintendent, small-time gambler, and full-time bouncer, living & working on the Upper East Side while looking for his Big Break. One December morning, while sitting in a parked car, Tommy is approached by a casual gambling acquaintance and is invited to buy a piece of a racehorse for $10,000. Tommy gets other big breaks that same week -- he lands an audition for a TV commercial that might finally get him national exposure, and he meets a string of pretty girls who frequent his bar. But first he just needs $10,000. What could possibly go wrong? Having the surname Russo, for one thing. This is the second Hard Case novel in a row, following last month's Casino Moon (Hard Case Crime) with a main character named "Russo" trying to make the big-time by buying into the sporting world. Compare the two Russos and see which one fares better. It's hard to think of a character in modern crime fiction who's started in a decent (though far from lofty) place and fallen so far so quickly. The only other comparison I can come up with, and this is a big one, is William H. Macy's character in the Coen Brothers' Fargo (Special Edition). Both men seem to be lacking even the tiniest shred of morality, and manage to squander every advantage that they're given, however modest. Of course, Tommy probably has more fun along the way, and by the end of the lightning-fast 251 pages, much like Jerry Lundegaard before him, still doesn't seem to realize what's gone wrong. "Fake I.D." is a blast to read. Told in Tommy's unreliable first-person voice, Starr doesn't resort to many literary tricks to get his point across -- Mr. Russo is certainly no Humbert Humbert -- but clearly this is a work of great sophistication. You will want to take an extra long hot shower when you're done, though.