STREET RAISED Chapter One

“When Speedy raises from prison, he hitchhikes home to Oakland only to find his brother Little Willy a homeless crack head and his best friend Fat Bob bouncing in San Francisco's underground hardcore clubs. When two of their childhood homeboys get wrapped in chains by Mexican slangers and thrown in the American River alive, our heroes somehow get it together enough to plot revenge.” “Sure, it maybe takes the edge off Speedy's game a little when he starts playing… (more)

“When Speedy raises from prison, he hitchhikes home to Oakland only to find his brother Little Willy a homeless crack head and his best friend Fat Bob bouncing in San Francisco's underground hardcore clubs. When two of their childhood homeboys get wrapped in chains by Mexican slangers and thrown in the American River alive, our heroes somehow get it together enough to plot revenge.” “Sure, it maybe takes the edge off Speedy's game a little when he starts playing house with beautiful phone psychic Carmel, and it complicates things a bit more when Louis, the same cop who put him in prison, starts dogging their steps like an unwelcome relative. But when a racist coven of skinz comes howling for Speedy & Carmel's blood, and a serial killer with a monster in his head decides Speedy is the answer to all his unholy prayers, things get really interesting . . .” Ken Bruen (author of LONDON BOULEVARD, soon to be a major motion picture, Oscar winner William Monahan (screenwriter of The Departed) to write & direct): "One of the best writers I know. Imagine James Ellroy coupled with GR Martin and overseen by Willeford. But Pearce really needs no comparison to any other writer; he’s created his own compelling dark universe that ratchets up noir to an astonishing level.” Jason Starr (bestselling author of THE PACK): "STREET RAISED is a full-tilt, dead-on descent into the Bay Area underworld, with lovably flawed characters and stunning dialogue. Every page, it seems, has something to marvel at. This is literary crime of the highest order, on par with the work of the great Eddie Bunker. Pearce Hansen is a major new talent." Joe Lansdale (author of BUBBA HO-TEP starring Bruce Campbell): “STREET RAISED is a scar of a book, but it's a beautifully healed scar. Gutsy, fast-paced, written in an electric style. Recommended.” Eddie Muller (founder and President of the Film Noir Foundation, in his San Francisco Chronicle review): “A fast, ferocious and often ugly ride through the East Bay's feral underground. Hansen's tale is a curious blend of drug culture minutia and a story line that's more a cranked-up fable than a traditional crime story. In its best passages, STREET RAISED suggests a contemporary version of Jack Black's classic 1926 memoir of itinerant criminal life, You Can’t Win – albeit a heavily armed, hyperviolent update.”