Cold Caller: A White Collar Noir

by Jason Starr

In Cold Caller Jason Starr retools the James M. Cain novel of cynical suspense and murder for the fiber-optic age.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393317676
• ISBN13: 9780393317671
• Release Date: May 1998
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 218 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Been there

Captures what it is like to be a telemarketer. It is a quick one sitting read. The best description is it is a cross between Office Space and American Psycho.

The thrill in the late capitalism

Jason Starrs "Cold Caller" is a thriller from the modern working sphere. Its hero Bill Moss works as a telephone salesman in a call center. Which does not sound itself only times particularly excitingly, turns out however already after few sides as an ultra exciting book, which one does not want to put out of the hand, before one knows how it ends. Because Bill Moss is threatened. However not of the mafia, secret agents or natural catastrophes, but of many more realistic and thus more uncanny dangers. He is threatened of unemployment, social degredation and cancellation of the personality. Bill Moss fights against these dangers and releases with it a terrible vortex of events. "Cold Caller" is also a horror book concerning the frights of current capitalism. Jason Starr supplies a convincing society criticism in the garb of an exciting thriller. Best in a slide read!

Great psychological thriller!

This book chronicles the rise and fall of Bill Moss, an ex high flying ad exectutive, who has lost his job and now works as a telemarketer. It's one of the best crime novels I've read in years. It's dark, tense, suspenseful and--at times--hilarious. Starr really knows how to write crime fiction, and the characterizations and dialogue are great. I once had a boss from hell like Bill's and, well...I hope they make a movie of this one and get Johnny Depp to star. Very highly recommended.

GREAT BOOK

I bought this book after I read Starr's new novel, Nothing Personal (which was also great), and I enjoyed this one just as much. Really dark and really funny. Bill Moss is one of the most memorable characters I've read in a crime novel in years. Very highly recommended.

Great read, good find and introduction to the genre.

Although not my usual kind of read, I picked up Starr's book by chance and couldn't put it down until the consistently strange and compelling end. Starr led me innocently into the story and into the life and head of Bill who most likely represents those aspiring, yet frustrated group of mid-30's educated creative types who are forced to yield to the competitive corporate inanities and heirarchies. Many of those young men and women must harbor similar fantasies and the book, like a good film, allows them a vicarious safe go at it. I liked the style and the creative turns the novel took. Looking foward to another good read by Jason Starr.

A Jim Thompson for the Computer Age

For a long time now I've been looking around for a contemporary crime author with some of the unapologetic nastiness of Jim Thompson or Charles Willeford. Well, finally, with Cold Caller, I've found it. This is a gripping read with a darkly funny tone. The narrator of the story draws you into his bitter, bleak, office world in a way that anyone who works in an office can relate to. Not that you would go to the lengths he does to get ahead, but he certainly does what many of us have imagined we'd like to do. Anyway, a highly recommended, enjoyable read. Noir at its blackest.