Love You to a Pulp is another great book from the small publisher All Due Respect.  This one is from C.S. DeWildt.

The story telling here is very interesting, it tells two stories, alternating from chapter to chapter.  Both revolve around our hero Neil.  The first story is about our adult Neil, a glue sniffing down on his luck, hardboiled private detective.  The second story is about a teenage Neil growing up.  I found this interesting because we find how he was raised and why he is a glue sniffing adult.

Like all the noir fiction I’ve read from All Due Respect, this book is very dark and this one made me cringe more than once.  The story starts with Neil taking a case from a father who wants his daughter back in his life.  The daughter and her boyfriend have ripped him off, the father owns a pharmacy and the pair has taken a bunch of drugs from the store.  He doesn’t want his daughter to get in trouble, and wants her taken away from her boyfriend.  The second story shows Neil growing up with his pimp father and whore mother.  To make a few bucks, his father enters him into illegal fights, reminiscent of dog or cock fights, but with young boys.  We learn as the story goes on and gets darker and darker how Neil grew up to be a man.  We also take a crazy voyage in the present, with Ex-wives, lawyers, shady motels, drug deals, suicides, strippers and on and on.

I enjoyed this book immensely, the characters were interesting and most were more twisted than Neil if you can believe that.   I think it is safe to say, after three books, if you have a weak stomach don’t read anything from All Due Respect.  If you like to go deep down that dark rabbit hole, All Due Respect is your one stop shop.  This is another amazing original noir for the hard-core fan.  I look forward to reading more from DeWildt and hope to soon.  Check out All Due Respect’s website to find this and other great books.

http://allduerespectbooks.com/