Bill Moss should by now be something big in advertising, but instead finds himself making cold calls in a New York office, working for a man he hates and living with a woman who annoys him. Sometimes life in the big city isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and it can be easy to overreact when something goes wrong. Bill’s life soon turns into a nightmare, but how much of it is of his own making?When this arrived for me to review from the Real Readers programme I wasn’t really sure what it make of it. The cover doesn’t give a lot of clues, other than quotes saying it’s in the great tradition of American noir, and the illustration on the front makes it look like a horror novel. Now that I’ve read it I’m not sure that I can categorise it any better and I don’t really know whether I enjoyed it or not.I did like the New York setting as I’ve watched so many films and TV series set there (as well as visited a couple of times) that it felt quite familiar. Bill seemed like someone I had come across before as he seems to stand for the middle-class white male with a college education who thinks the world owes him a living. He has a very robust sense of himself and is convinced he’s always in the right and that everyone else is wrong, deluded or being deliberately obtuse. I didn’t find him a likeable character or even a particularly interesting one at the start of the book and my view of him deteriorated as I progressed. He’s a very fixed character and despite everything he goes through in the course of his story he’s exactly the same man at the end as at the beginning. The reader gets no feeling of satisfaction at journey’s end as Bill appears to have learned nothing.There’s a definite element of very black comedy and even farce in Cold Caller and in this it reminded me of American Psycho – there are many similarities between the two works. There isn’t as much explicit violence in this as in Bret Easton Ellis’s work, but there’s enough. There’s also racism, sexism and too many other negative –isms to easily list.This is a short book written in an easily-readable style and entirely in the first person, so we have no option but to listen to Bill’s interior monologue and be subjected to this views. The reader only sees the other characters through his eyes and it can take a concerted effort to compare the reality of what’s happening with his view of it. His very distorted image of the people and world around him made me pity the other characters even more for having to put up with him!So all in all I found this book a bit of a puzzle. I wasn’t sure what (if anything) it was trying to be and say, and I can’t say I enjoyed it much beyond wondering what it was aiming for. It left me with a nasty taste in my mouth and the niggling feeling that I’m missing something vital. Perhsps I would have enjoyed it more if I were a man.
I received this book to review from Real Readers.I was intrigued by this book. The cover was striking and unusual. It is set in a call centre even more unusual although some of the calls I receive I want to get my revenge.Other reviewers have likened this author style to Jim Thompson and James M. Cain, I wanted to read this and make up my own mind. Yes I could see similarities, but for the reader who had not read books of these authors- still go ahead you are in for a good read.The author has a good style of writing and the story is narrated by the criminal which is interesting.I found the book became darker as the story progressed and the main character Bill Moss just gives the reader enough information to keep the reader guessing and on their toes. The back humour did surprise me. An author to look out for I am hooked now by this author.
The most frustrating thing about COLD CALLER is that there is a good book in there somewhere. But it's a draft or two away. Everything about the book felt sloppy and unfinished to me. The language, the plotting and the characters all lacked consistency and never quite felt grounded.While the story suggests a satire of the working world and a broad approach to the subject matter, the execution plays everything straight. And I'm not sure what the story is satirizing. I never really bought anything that was happening, many of the turns in the story far too convenient for the writer.I would definitely read another book by Starr, as his reputation seems to suggest that I would like his books. However, I would hope that the next one I read would be a little more polished.
—Johnny
Cold Caller - Jason StarrI couldn’t put this down; I simply had to know what happened and how things ended up.Is that the mark of a good book? Maybe. It’s a compelling narrative very typical of its genre, a story that creates a spiral of unease as the protagonist hurtles into an abyss of, really, his own making. The same feeling you get from reading Patricia Highsmith. The sense that if one thing had happened slightly differently the whole story would have taken a different course. Fairly ordinary, mundane people get enmeshed in a web from which they cannot seem to extricate themselves. There are unexpected twists and turns especially at the end. There’s something very uncomfortable about the main character of a fiction being so lawless and unpleasant, such a liar and so immoral. And add to that the fact that the book is written in the first person so you know the character survives and you are imbibed with the need to read on. I thought the dialogues, especially between Bill and Julie, were overlong and didn’t add overall to the book. If it was a tool to indicate how unexceptional they both were then it worked but I wanted to move on with the story. And like the layers of an onion peeled away Bill was revealed to be a pretty worthless apology for a human being. But this book is a must read for fans of noir fiction for it surely won’t disappoint. And whilst I won’t actively seek out Mr. Starr’s oeuvre if Real Readers, or anyone else for that matter, were to send me another I would read it with enthusiasm I’m sure.
—Gill Chedgey
I liked this! Bill Moss, stuck in a job he's not mad about, just to make ends meet. Lives with his fiancé, Julie, who grates on him, and dreams of returning to his former lifeas an Advertising executive. Ends up bumping off his boss and a hooker and almost gets away with it except his fiancé is a little pissed about it and stabs him in the neck. He doesn't die but he doesn't have his old life back either. A good read for sure!
—Deborah
