Fade to Black: Noir Stories of Grifters, Drifters, and Unlovable Losers (Close to the Bone, 2024)
Critics Say of Robert White’s Noir Thrillers:
When You Run with Wolves: “. . . Explosive pulp action from start to finish . . . brutal and unrelenting. . . . written with a rare intelligence and wit that almost belies its violent heart.”
—Michael Young, All Blood Is Red
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Dead Cat Bounce “[is] a deftly crafted suspense noir style thriller -- but with a number of unexpected but inherently riveting twists and turns . . .” — Midwest Book Review
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The Russian Heist [is] “a gripping noir crime thriller . . . . — Michael Shulman, Manhattan Book Review
Full-Tilt Boogie: “Seldom do you find such unspeakable subjects as the themes in Full Tilt Boogie being described with the near-poetic precision of Robb White’s acid prose. This novel is not for the faint-hearted nor the lily-livered. There’s blood and there’s butchery and there’s absolutely nothing pretty to see here.” – Rowena Hoseason, Murder, Mayhem & More
Fade-Black-Robert-White/dp/B0D7TR9MT9
Grifters, Drifters, & Losers
Homicide cops talk about the “unholy trinity” behind most murders: greed, lust, revenge. In White’s collection of 22 noir tales you have all three motives on display, sometimes all three working in combination with one another. Take “Gone Fishing,” for example. A man cheats on his best friend with the man’s wife. That man wants to take him fishing in rough weather in a small boat on open water. There’s more than catching yellow perch behind the invitation.
Sleazy motels, seedy diners, factories, jails, and bars aren’t the only places where danger lurks in these stories. The luckless men and women who try to escape their fates in Fade to Black mostly discover that they’ve been running toward it all the time. White’s subtitle is fitting: “Noir Stories of Drifters, Grifters, & Unlovable Loser.” It isn’t all hopeless, as some stories will show, lfalls on the just and unjust alike.