Publishers Weekly 10 Best Noir Novels

At Publishers Weekly, Ken Bruen included Matthew McBride’s A Swollen Red Sun in his list of 10 Best Noir Novels.

McBride came to prominence with his debut novel, the wonderfully titled Frank Sinatra in a Blender. This, his second novel, comes fully noir, and is one of the finest accounts of how meth has spread across the Midwestern states like some bubonic plague. Demons from its use and the characters’ own demons fuse into an epic blend of one of the darkest, most humorous noirs of the past decade. Gasconade County as depicted here rivals James Ellroy’s Los Angeles for the sheer scope of its compassion and corruption.