Kiss Me, Judas
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''Kiss Me, Judas'' is a 1998
neo-noir Neo-noir is a film genre that adapts the visual style and themes of 1940s and 1950s American film noir for contemporary audiences, often with more graphic depictions of violence and sexuality. During the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the term ...
novel by the American author Will Christopher Baer. The book was first published on October 1, 1998, through
Viking Press Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheimer and then acqu ...
and follows the character of Phineas Poe after he wakes up in a hotel bathtub full of ice to discover that somebody has removed one of his kidneys.


Plot summary

During his first night out of a mental institution after suffering a nervous breakdown, Phineas Poe is picked up by a prostitute named Jude. She drugs him removes his kidney, and leaves him in a hotel bathtub full of ice with a note on the counter that reads, "If you want to live, call 9-1-1." Phineas, an ex-police officer who had recently been searching for information against the Denver Police Department's Internal Affairs Unit, later finds out that a bag of heroin replaced his kidney. While searching for his missing kidney, Phineas finds love in his attacker while he evades the angry Denver police and tries to unlock the secrets behind his wife's recent death.


Reception

Critical reception for ''Kiss Me, Judas'' was mixed. ''
Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American online magazine, digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, ...
'' gave the book a "C+", writing that Baer's "scalpel-sharp noir style proves a mesmerizing lure, but it can't compensate for a hazy plot that veers from the nauseating (much gratuitous, ornately sadistic violence) to the nonsensical". The ''Chicago Tribune'' also gave a mixed review, recommending the book to "fans of James Ellroy's more elliptical writing" but writing that it took a while to get into the book's rhythm.
Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus. The magazine's publisher, Kirkus Media, is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, no ...
gave a more positive review, stating that "Baer will almost certainly write better books than this, but probably not with such youthful verve, bare nerve-ends, or frigidly droll, dead-on metaphors".


References

1998 American novels Novels by Will Christopher Baer Postmodern novels Existentialist novels Novels with unreliable narrators Novels set in Denver Viking Press books 1998 debut novels {{postmodern-novel-stub