New novel from Ray Banks — in NEEDLE

The rumors are true.

The upcoming novel from Ray Banks — WOLF TICKETS — will be serialized in the next three issues of Needle: A Magazine of Noir.

The quick, punch to the throat, 60,000-word novel features Cobb and Farrell who are, in Banks’s words, some “decidedly unsavoury” characters.

From the first chapter of WOLF TICKETS:

Me against him, me all flabby and old and him as gym-wide as he was tall.
On paper, it was a fuckin’ no-brainer, even if Security hadn’t reckoned himself tidy as, which he did. So, being a daft bastard, he made a grab for us. And me being prepared, I was ready for him.
It’s the old saying: better to have a size thirteen sock with a clutch of double-As in the toe and not need it than …
You know the rest.
Brought me hand out me pocket, let the sock drop. A dull clicking sound as the batteries hit the toe. Security frowned, hands out. I hefted. He opened his mouth. I lashed the cunt across the eyes.
He made a noise like “Ah-yah!” then dropped and rolled. Didn’t have time to say much else before I stepped up and took the sock the back of the bastard’s ankles, double-whap. Then he started screaming, so I had to kick the wind out of him, else he’d have the fuckin’ polis round in no time. Took a couple goes, like, on account of I was wearing my Golas and they’re proper shit to kick with, but I managed in the end.
He breathed grit for a while. I stepped back, caught me breath and then hockled on Security.
Said, “That’s what you get for trying to poof up a war hero.”
Then I patted me arse like the bird in the ads and did one.

Banks has had a legion of followers worldwide, especially with his Saturday’s Child in 2006. Since then, this stories have continued to kick conventional crime fiction square in the crotch.

The summer issue of Needle features “The Great Pretender.”

Novels from Banks include The Big Blind (2004), Saturday’s Child (2006), Donkey Punch (2007), No More Heroes (2008), and Beast of Burden (2009).