Seven Demons

March 29, 2021
Truhen’s rambling sequel to 2018’s The Price You Pay opens with Jack Price, “CEO of a global criminal enterprise with deep roots in the community and a justified reputation for unparalleled savagery,” in Switzerland, where a nine-year-old he’s dubbed Evil Hansel has just stabbed him in the leg. The author takes his time explaining what led to this act of violence as he introduces Price’s crew, which includes the Doc, “who basically is walking science with whom I am in a Nietzschean and highly charged sexual relationship,” and Lucille, “a large guy wearing a suit made of sharp edges.” Price is retained by someone he calls Mr. Client to rob a supposedly invulnerable Swiss bank. Mr. Client desires 10 metal suitcases secured inside the vault, successfully tempting Price with a €300 million payday. As the start telegraphs, the crime doesn’t go as planned. The plot is almost lost amid such odd references as rabbit “fearboners” and run-on sentences. A large appetite for violent absurdity is required. Agent: Patrick Walsh, PEW Literary.

April 1, 2021
At a moment of great inconvenience for international coke dealer and all-around scourge Jack Price--he and his gang of irregulars, the Seven Demons, have united to rob a high-security bank on a Swiss mountaintop--people are out to kill him. The novel, narrated by Price, opens with a psychopathic 9-year-old boy named Evil Hansel stabbing him in the thigh with an oyster knife. Even after the kid--"a little Sound of Music-looking motherfucker in actual lederhosen"--is literally thrown under a car, he remains one of an array of cutthroats the Demons must deal with. One of Price's tactics is to fake his death and assume the identity of Banjo Telemark, an artist and "ambiguitionist" who specializes in "tearing down the world's certainty." Under his own assumed name, Truhen is consumed with tearing down the language of genre fiction. There is a bit of plot and mayhem ("Please don't explode my balls," pleads one sad case). And a trickle of honest emotion leaks from Price and Doc, a scary woman with whom he has a "Nietzschean and highly charged sexual relationship." But spritzed � la Lenny Bruce by the motor-mouthed Price, the book is mostly an epic word bath roiled by badass attitude, wild digressions, pitying self-analysis, and colorful sound effects (including a pig's scream). While the rampaging verbiage can be highly entertaining--think of John Kennedy Toole colliding with James Ellroy on TikTok--good luck trying to keep up. By the time you reach this mountaintop, you may well want to spend some quiet time with a book of haiku. A postmodern heist novel with charged wordplay but flickering narrative.

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