The Disassembled Man

Frankie Avicious is a hard-luck fellow with a sordid past. Living in a dreary meatpacking town stuck in a loveless marriage and spending his days slaughtering cattle Frankie has nothing to look forward to but his next swallow of bargain whiskey. His wife is threatening to leave him and the local sociopath is threatening to kill him. And then theres Scarlett Acres a stripper with a heart of fools gold. Frankie cant stop thinking about her... With the encouragement of a mysterious traveling salesman Frankie sets out to reverse his destiny through a series of bizarre murders. The consequences of his brutality turn out to be far worse than even he could imagine. Praise for THE DISASSEMBLED MAN: The Disassembled Man is lean and mean-with the emphasis on mean-a true psycho-noir novel that leaves the reader to work out the truth behind events we can only see from the point of view of the protagonist. The twist that comes maybe two thirds of the way through the book ups the stakes even more and those last few pages are a real mindbender. Taken as a whole The Disassembled Man is a damn fine read; a brilliant and raw example of the Psycho Noir genre. -Russel D. McLean Crime Scene Scotland For the first third of Jon Bassoffs beautifully ugly first novel The Disassembled Man I felt the presence of Jim Thompson. Nothing wrong with that the tone and feel of Thompson are appropriate to the material. But then Bassoff gets going on his own and you realize that while he uses the same kind of Swiftian tone Thompson did every nuance of ugliness writ large-I always had the feeling that Thompson used it as comic relief a kind of fabulism if you will. Laughing past the graveyard that would all too soon claim you. I dont get that feeling at all with the Bassoff novel. The power of this book and it has considerable power is that Bassoff never apologies for his people or their story. An impressive and imposing debut. -Ed Gorman Eds New Improved Blog Bassoff has written sheer nasty beautiful prose with this book. The wince factor is high and the characters horridly riveting. The envelope has not just been pushed but set on fire. -Jennifer Jordan Crime Spree Magazine The Disassembled Man is remarkable for its ugliness. Its hard to think of a book with a character as despicable as Frankie Avicious. This Jim Thompson on mescaline story is not for the faint of heart. -Nathan Cain Independent Crime Jon Bassoffs novel The Disassembled Man is a wince-inducing front row seat to a soul shredding. Its so unrelentingly dark so hopeless and dank that when the humor rears its fugly head youll want to wretch because you laughed. You will hate yourself for those laughs. But you will laugh. Whatever literary tag its given The Disassembled Man is a hell of a statement. -Jedidiah Ayers Hardboiled Wonderland Bassoff is good and the things that are at the heart of a good psycho noir-great characters lurid action and a propellant plot-are all here in abundance. -John Kenyon Things Id Rather be Doing Jim Thompsons psychotic hell brutally collides with Bruce Jay Friedmans absurdist humor in this shotgun blast of a novel. -Dave Zeltserman author of Small CrimesHaving read quite a number of psycho noirs Id have to say this ones a bit special. Jon Bassoff really nails it. -Allan Guthrie author of SlammerThis is strong stuff definitely not the kind of thing that youre going to find from a mainstream publisher. If you have a taste for the off-beat this might be just what youre looking for. -Bill Crider author of Murder in Four PartsFlexers gritty nasty tale in the classic dime-novel tradition moves like a bullet from a Beretta. -Mike Segretto author of The Bride of Trash