BEAT

I was totally unfamiliar with both author Stephen Jay Schwartz and his 2010 crime novel BEAT but when I stumbled across a copy at a local library book sale, I decided to risk one whole dollar and take a chance on what looked like an interesting book.

BEATis the second novel by Schwartz to feature LAPD robbery/homicide detective Hayden Glass. Having just finished (and thoroughly loving BEAT) I will definitely have to seek out a copy of the first book, BOULEVARD. In Hayden Glass, Schwartz has given us a different kind of detective hero. While there are plenty of novels featuring detectives with addiction problems (I'm thinking the Matt Scudder series by Lawrence Block in particular), I don't recall anyone having the guts to present us a hero with a sex addiction. Glass has one and it's a beast, a King Kong size monkey on his back.

Glass finds a beautiful young prostitute, Cora, on a website and begins an online relationship with her. His obsession with Cora soon leads him to meet her in person and their relationship deepens. Glass is truly, deeply in love with Cora (or so he tells himself) but Cora is the White Rabbit that leads Glass down a rabbit hole of brutal sex, Russian criminals and corrupt cops.

When Cora is beaten, raped and abducted before his eyes, Glass enters the San Francisco underworld of strip clubs, hookers, and peep shows in his quest to find and rescue his lovely young lover. Glass's obsession with both Cora and sex and the depiction of the seamy side of sex for hire recalls both TAXI DRIVER (1976) and HARDCORE (1979) (both of which were written by Paul Schrader, with Schrader directing the latter). Glass finds allies in Holbrook and Gunnar, two sympathetic SFPD uniformed cops and Abbey, a character from the previous novel, who now works in the San Francisco coroner's office. His enemies include Inspector Locatelli, a hard nosed cop determined to throw the book at Glass, two warring Russian brothers, both of whom control rather large empires of women and pornography, and FBI agent Caulfield, who is on the trail of corruption at the highest levels of the SFPD. The missing Cora, who witnessed a murder involving a city official, holds the key to the whole sordid puzzle and Glass will go to any lengths to find and save her. But when secrets about the young hooker are revealed, Glass is forced to question his real motives before finally finding solace in a real, genuine and loving relationship with Abbey.

Schwartz grabs you by the throat from the beginning and keeps the pedal to the metal throughout the whole twisty narrative. The action and sex is graphic and brutal and Glass is on the receiving end of more punishment (both physical and mental) than any one man could possibly withstand. But withstand he does, long enough to invade a fortress-like warehouse which houses a multitude of dark secrets in the blazing, action packed climax of the book.

Hayden Glass is one seriously fucked up dude but Schwartz finds the humanity and compassion buried beneath the layers of addiction and obsession and brings this flawed, beaten but never broken hero to bloody, vivid life. BEAT is not for the faint hearted and is definitely for adult readers. It's a dark trip into a grim netherworld that exists in cities all across America. Raw, brutal and unflinching, BEAT is highly recommended.