Review of Marcus Sakey's "The Blade Itself"

New authors come and go, with few of them having the staying power to make a lasting career in this crazy business. It's impossible to predict who is going to make it and who is not. Judging by Marcus Sakey's debut novel, The Blade Itself, however, it seems likely that he's going to be around for quite a while.

Danny Carter, the book's protagonist, is just a regular guy living an ordinary life. He's got a good job, a nice condo in the city and a girlfriend he loves. But he also has a secret. Seven years before, he was involved in a robbery where a man was shot and nearly killed.

Danny's partner went to prison, but Danny went free. Now the partner has been released, and has come looking for Danny, eager to resume their life of crime. Danny wants no part of that, however. He's determined to stay on the straight and narrow. Unfortunately, for him, his former partner isn't willing to take no for an answer.

Marcus Sakey writes like he's been doing this for a lifetime. Reading The Blade Itself one can make guesses about the authors who may have influenced him, people like Elmore Leonard, George Pelecanos and Dennis Lehane. What's most impressive, however, is that rather than resembling the work of those other authors, Sakey's writing reads as if it were all his own.

His prose is so polished, his eyes and ears so keenly attuned, that it's hard to believe that this is his first novel. The Blade Itself has its flaws – it can be too sentimental at times, and the plot requires a little too much suspension of disbelief – but it is nevertheless a remarkable debut, one of the best to come along in some time.

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Comments

[spyscribbler]

The vivid details in this book just made me want to die. They didn't just lend the novel credibility, but they brought it to life for me. I'm not big on using the word 'talent,' but Sakey seems to have something special!

About the KY thing, bummer, but if I read all the books I really, truly want to read and am DYING to read, I wouldn't have time to eat or sleep. And I wouldn't even be finished before I died. What can you do?