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"Terrific. The voices reverberate in your ears, and the smell of gunfire lingers long after the last man is down."
   —Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Sunday Book Review (read the full review here or here)


"Shocking, indelible, and brutal, with moments of strange beauty and desperate tenderness."
   —Kevin Nance, Chicago Sun-Times (read the full review here or here)


"[A] firecracker crime novel teeming with violence and venality... His lit-fuse urgency hits you right in the gut."
   —Entertainment Weekly


"Charlie Newton bar none, is the most talented new voice of noir. Start Shooting had me on the edge of my seat for hours, dark, chilling, gripping, clever...Raymond Chandler would be proud."
   —Andrew F. Gulli, Managing Editor, The Strand Magazine


"Start Shooting is on par with the greats in this genre and it's truly the best piece of material we've read in a long time...and we feel strongly there is a movie in the book. Charlie Newton is, indeed, a genius."
   —Josie Freedman, International Creative Management (ICM), Los Angeles


"Start Shooting will do for the Windy City what The Wire did for Baltimore and James Ellroy's novels did for Los Angeles. Following up Calumet City (2008), Newton delivers an even more thrilling, densely packed novel that makes most Chicago crime thrillers seem tame."
 STARRED REVIEW:  Kirkus (read the full review here)


"Wonderfully realized characters... beyond-frenetic action... hypnotic. Newton has created the writerly equivalent of every great Chicago bluesman who ever lived playing together... It might be messy, but you wouldn't want to miss a single note."
 STARRED REVIEW:  Booklist (read the full review here)


"Charlie Newton is the real goods, delivering bare-knuckle crime fiction with life-or-death action, visceral language, and characters whose flaws and humanity pull us into his cops-and-crime landscape. I was completely won over. START SHOOTING is a superb balance between adrenaline and pathos."
   —Robert Crais


"A really astonishingly good book."
   —Rick Kogan, WGN Radio, Chicago


"Charlie Newton's people will attract or repel you, but they won't let you go. START SHOOTING is the best damned book you're likely to read this year. Or most others."
   —Donald E. McQuinn

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What Bloggers Are Saying about START SHOOTING

"The dark underside of Chicago's gangland snarls and bites juxtaposed against the sheer beauty of Newton's writing. Echoes of Newton's musical influence come through in his language and that dichotomy raises the emotional impact."
   —Jen's Book Thoughts (read the full review here)


"A rampaging rogue elephant of a story, dense in its complexity, with a slam-bang on almost every page. The unexpected violence and the tense character dynamics keep the reader so on edge that frequent breaks are necessary in order to just remember to breathe."
   —The Drowning Machine (read the full review here)


"Each of the interwoven tales presents multiple perspectives, and there aren't any clear good or bad guys until the very end, and not even really then. The story is told through shades of gray, and it works beautifully...I can't remember the last time I wanted to a book to be longer. Most novels these days I place at anywhere from 50 to 200 pages too long. START SHOOTING, however, could have gone on for another 200 and I would not have complained. It was that much fun to read."
   —In Real Life (read the full review here)


"Someone needs to give Quentin Tarantino a copy of this book. It reads like one of his films..."
   —Whimpulsive (read the full review here)


"Newton writes like a guy who knows the streets of Chicago. He understands the city's greatness as well as its insidious underbelly, that fascinating dichotomy that makes Chicago such a great source for storytelling."
   —Noir Journal (read the full review here)


"A very enjoyable tale with powerhouse action scenes that explode out of nowhere."
   —John Sheridan, The Mystery Bookshelf Blog (read the full review here. Warning: possible spoiler included)


"What struck me most about the [New York Times] story, though, was the teachers themselves. They're tough-looking guys, not unlike cops themselves. They teach the cops to never sugarcoat, to tell it like it is, no matter how ugly or offensive."
   —David Alm, Contrary Blog (read the full blog post here.)

Photo by Erik Cornet

"This specific theatre is very important to [Charlie's] character Arleen Brennan, a working actress who auditions on stage for a revival of "A Streetcar Named Desire." Listening to Charlie describe this pivotal scene, it was clear the impact it had on the story and how much the theatre meant to him, as well as Arleen. Although he didn't want to relinquish his "tough guy" persona, Charlie started to get emotional while discussing Arleen's journey. It was incredibly moving for him to be able to sit alone in the space that has so much significance to his character and his story."
   —Celebrating 10 Years of Broadway in Chicago (read the full review here)