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Kiss Me, Judas (Phineas Poe #1)

3.9 of 5 stars 3.90 · rating details · 1,789 ratings · 125 reviews

Have you ever loved someone who's mortally wounded you? Phineas Poe, disgraced cop and morphine addict, has just been released from a psych ward when he meets a beautiful woman named Jude in a hotel bar. Red dress, black hair, body like a knife. He takes her back to his room and wakes the next morning in a bathtub full of blood and ice, missing a kidney. Dragging himself f...more

Paperback, 316 pages

Published June 20th 2006 by MacAdam/Cage Publishing (first published 1998)

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Jan 29, 2013 Katherine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2006

Phineas Poe is an ex-cop, just released from a psychiatric ward after a six month stay for a nervous break down. His job is gone, his wife is dead, and Poe really doesn��t have much to live for. Enter, Jude. This beautiful woman in red sits down next to Poe and the two begin to converse. Poe is easily seduced by Jude �� especially after she drugs his drink. Poe remembers nothing after taking her back to his hotel room. He wakes up smack dab in the middle of an urban legend. Shivering in a cold...more

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Feb 28, 2012 Daniel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Kiss Me, Judas. A story about a man whose kidney is stolen by a prostitute. Can that urban legend be anything but the stale center of an overtired premise? Apparantly, it CAN be something more.

Will Christopher Baer's writing is edgy, visceral, and almost nauseating in its effectiveness. Nauseating in the same way that leaping off a cliff can be nauseating. Phineas Poe, the central character of the novel, starts the novel kidney-less and on the verge of death, and for the rest of the story he eat...more Kiss Me, Judas. A story about a man whose kidney is stolen by a prostitute. Can that urban legend be anything but the stale center of an overtired premise? Apparantly, it CAN be something more.

Will Christopher Baer's writing is edgy, visceral, and almost nauseating in its effectiveness. Nauseating in the same way that leaping off a cliff can be nauseating. Phineas Poe, the central character of the novel, starts the novel kidney-less and on the verge of death, and for the rest of the story he eats very little, sleeps only when he is knocked out, and takes a whole boquet of random and usually nameless drugs that leave him teetering on the knife-edge between antsy bliss and crippling withdrawl. Baer's prose more than once left me feeling deep sympathy pains for the protagonist, and everytime I closed the book, I felt distinctly disoriented. It would be difficult to find someone not drawn head-first into this well-crafted world of present tense paranoias and pains.

There is not much to be found in the way of relief, however, and even the conclusion of the novel -- a powerful, poignant, and almost penultimate moment of touching sweetness and deep spiritual candor -- seems to end before it can really provide the kind of blessed closure the book seems to ache for.

Because, Phineas is not just suffering in a body that has been cut and battered and poisoned, but he is also aching under the strain of a heavy and shattered heart that thinks it may, once again, be in love -- this time with the woman who cut out his kidney.

As implausible as that seems in a summary, the book manages to navigate with well-honed instincts around the more treacherous areas of that premise into a deep, calm bay of believability. I wouldn't love the woman (Jude is her name, a somewhat overt Biblical reference with more symbolism attached than it first suggests), but I can certainly see with unquestionable clarity why Poe loves her, and as a result, I don't doubt much of what he does or why he does it, even if I shake my head when I read about it.

However, the book certainly gives you a lot to doubt. The story is plagued by liars and deceivers, and the final resting place of Poe's kidney is never clarified. Most of the elements of the tale are given some kind of resolution, but Baer teasingly suggests that every one of those resolutions could very well be false. In the end -- and this is a definite certainty -- very very very little about the novel's events can be understood with any certainty. Who is lying? Who isn't? What are anybody's true motives and goals? Baer seems to suggest some plausible explanations for all of these things, but in the same moment, with a wink and a dark smirk, he also lets you know that those explanations aren't necessarily valid.

Or important.

Because, in the end, whether or not any of the characters has told the truth, whether or not Jude really shares Poe's love or is simply using him, well, these things are all beside the point, because what the novel is about is Poe's shattered soul, and what it takes to repair it, to redeem it, to save it outside of the dark, twisted realm of lies and pain in which it is so deeply immersed.

In fact, the only reason I didn't give this novel five stars was because, ultimately, its more philosophical and spiritual and emotional points seem at odds with its dark Gothic dressing and its unrelenting ocean of anguish and confusion. Baer, it seems, has two different tales here, and although he has married them well, they still don't go together seamlessly. There are fits and starts to the emotional arc.

And while it is obvious that Baer is suggesting that not all of the questions need solid answers, he still sets you up to expect them, and their absence leaves a sort of aching void. But perhaps that's the point. The book is one big aching void, and its lack of sympathy for both its central character and the reader seems to belie a deeper intent: one that is, at its heart, purely speculative, purely emotional, purely mental. It's a bumpy ride with a sudden stop, but the landscape -- both external and internal -- is breath-taking, and not always in a pleasant and relaxing way. Like Poe, you have to search sometimes to reclaim the breath that was stolen from you.

And in the meantime, you're aching for air.(less)

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Mar 20, 2010 Jake rated it 3 of 5 stars

Let me preface this by saying that I liked Baer's writing quite a bit here. What I didn't like was the...book.

Phrases like 'furious silence' pepper the pages and are more than enough to keep me reading when when I stopped giving a shit about the plot a third of the way in. See, the story is told in the first person, and that person may or may not be crazy. Combine that with the fact that every other character seems to have a hidden agenda (or maybe doesn't). So the reader is never QUITE sure wha...more

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Mar 01, 2010 Colin Miller rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels, favorite-of-this-author, cant-remember-well-enough-to-review

Four stars.

Omnibus review:

Will Christopher Baer is a more respectable version of Chuck Palahniuk. They’re very similar—both are dark, first-person storytellers with a predilection for the twisted underworld of sex and violence—but I’d place Baer more on the side of dark storyteller and Palahniuk on the side of shock writer. Plus Palahniuk bled one narrator into (many, but for sure his initial) four novels; Baer just accepted his love for that voice and made a trilogy.

The Phineas Poe trilogy—Kis...more

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Paul Eckert Great review.

I tried reading Kiss Me, Judas several years ago. Got 100 pages in and gave up. I had received it free at a Chuck Palahniuk reading in Au...more
updated Mar 02, 2010 05:19pm

Colin Miller Thanks Paul.

I know what you mean about the disappointment factor. Just because people you like enjoy a book, doesn't mean you will. I probably overlap...more
Mar 03, 2010 10:14am

Gordon Must. Resist. Assimilation... I agree with Colin's assessment across the board, though I'd rate them higher. There's something about Baer's first-pers...more
Mar 03, 2010 02:19pm

Jul 16, 2011 Lucille rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: messed-up, bioethics

I honestly don't know what to say about this book.... An ex cop gets out of rehab. He is picked up by a beautiful woman in a hotel bar. He wakes up the next morning in a bathtub filled with ice, missing a kidney. He then decides that he wants to find the woman, but he is somewhat in love (or in lust) with her. The plot of this story twists and turns. It doesn't really help the understanding of what the hell is going on when the main character is on drugs for a lot of the novel. Some events may b...more

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Apr 11, 2013 Tony Moore rated it 3 of 5 stars

Welcome to Kiss Me, Judas. Prepare yourself for awkward metaphors and a serious lack of quotation marks.

Before diving into where I feel that this book goes wrong, let me address what this book does well. Smashingly well, in fact! The plot line is a million dollar idea. You know the saying that every book's plot line can be boiled down to one sentence and you can tell from that just how much potential the story could have. In this case, Will Baer nailed it with "Ex-cop is in love/obsession with t...more Welcome to Kiss Me, Judas. Prepare yourself for awkward metaphors and a serious lack of quotation marks.

Before diving into where I feel that this book goes wrong, let me address what this book does well. Smashingly well, in fact! The plot line is a million dollar idea. You know the saying that every book's plot line can be boiled down to one sentence and you can tell from that just how much potential the story could have. In this case, Will Baer nailed it with "Ex-cop is in love/obsession with the temptress who drugs him and steals his kidney". Wow! That's a great setup and it is what brought me to the book in the first place.

However, potential is not always fully realized and that is where I think that this book went wrong. So many places where it could have been outstanding it was simply "meh". The plot structure was oddly paced with sudden highs and a big sag at the end. I feel that at times the author lost track of where exactly the story was going.

Unfortunately, my biggest issues with the book were with the author's grammar and prose choices. Some books and authors can get away with missing quotation marks. Some authors harness this and are their stories are the better for it (ie. Cormac McCarthy). Dropping the quotation marks can add to the ambiance of a novel and give the dialogue a feel that it is a part of the background. This also pushes the dialogue into the back seat and makes it less important. This can be fine for some books where the spoken words are not the most important part of the story. This lack of quotations coupled with the author's insistence on inserting dialogue with multiple characters made parts of the novel an exercise in re-reading to figure out who was saying what.

Finally, I like that the author is going for a very noir feel with this book. However, his choices of metaphors left much to be desired. Many of them felt ham-fisted and forced. Some of them were so unfortunately placed that I burst out laughing at points in the book where there was no comedy.

Overall, I thought that the plot was fantastic but it was hampered by the author. I hope that his abilities improve and he keeps coming up with million dollar plot lines. If that is so, then I will definitely look for his work in the future.(less)

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Mar 14, 2010 Rockabilly rated it 5 of 5 stars

Although the similar theme is rather popular nowadays that's the author's manner of writing which makes this particular book in the genre so gripping, it's like a journey through some delirium, the story is unveiled with a due amount os suspense and secrecy so even at the end of the book you can't be sure just like the main character himself if it all happened for real or if it was only a nightmarish dream. The open end leaves you at the crossroads of your perception though the main plot seems r...more

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Sep 13, 2009 Mark rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime-and-mystery

This one is (as most anyone who's read it seems to concur) "hard to describe." I'd probably propose a new genre for it: "oneiric noir." The moody, poetic writing prose and the frequent breakdown of borders between the real and the dreamed/hallucinated on the part of the feckless narrator are the highlights of a narrative that is not always clear but is always compelling. It's a hard novel to put down, and while the plot is nothing new (pretty standard noir tropes crossed with one of the most mem...more

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Jul 06, 2011 JM rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Intriguing! By the first page I knew that I wanted to go along this journey with Phineas and not let go! The characters were unforgettable they left such a lasting impression I still felt their presence when they weren't there. I was just so intrigued being a spectator in his mind along this dark twisted adventure but until I got to the end I was left scratching my head. I wont spoil it..i just wanted more. I read this book twice in my teen years just because I liked the thrill so much and I'd p...more

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Sep 30, 2010 Manuel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Phineas Poe used to be a cop. Or maybe that’s just his new fake memory implemented in the mental institution he’s just left. He meets a beautiful stranger. The woman in red, Jude, steals one of his kidneys. He wakes up in a bathtub filled with ice, staples in his body. And he may or may not have fallen in love with her.

Not much in “Kiss Me, Judas” makes a whole lot of sense, but then again we experience this hallucinatory world through the eyes of Poe. Slowly lured into a sinister hole populate...more

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May 07, 2012 Jim rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

One wonders if the book's main character (a former undercover internal affairs detective) is still in the thrall of whatever mental illness that caused his recent breakdown, and is now unable to shake the psychotic and drug-induced nightmare, as he runs down a delusional and sexually warped rabbit hole into a world populated by a host of depraved, vicious, immoral felons; still deeply shaken by the mysterious end to the life of his sick wife (under circumstances that implicate him), he follows d...more

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Apr 28, 2013 Linus rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

In Kiss Me, Judas, Phineas Poe's already battered sense of self is challenged from the outset once he crosses paths with the treacherous Jude, who poses as a prostitute and quickly subdues him with drugs to then gain access to his digestive tract. Poe becomes (surely) fatally attracted to Jude, and is constantly questioning his own judgment (e.g., [when] should he kill her, not to mention the all-too basic questions of what has actually transpired in reality vs. hallucination). His awareness and...more In Kiss Me, Judas, Phineas Poe's already battered sense of self is challenged from the outset once he crosses paths with the treacherous Jude, who poses as a prostitute and quickly subdues him with drugs to then gain access to his digestive tract. Poe becomes (surely) fatally attracted to Jude, and is constantly questioning his own judgment (e.g., [when] should he kill her, not to mention the all-too basic questions of what has actually transpired in reality vs. hallucination). His awareness and self-reproach of his borderline personality makes us think that it doesn't really matter what he observes; he will always draw his own elaborate conclusions that may have nothing in common with his reality.

Instead of Poe's inner collapse being left explained in simple interiority and paranoia, it's brought to a climax near the height of the action in the story. Poe and Jude have just hijacked a plane in order to escape the law and Poe is in the middle of a morphine withdrawal. His constant nightmares alternate between reliving his early years with his late wife, and being locked in a windowless room by unknown captors. This terrifying image of Poe's psychological state is slapped in our face without having to sort through his convoluted thought processes.

The crescendo continues to increase, threatening to leave us high and dry at the most unbearable moment, to the point where there are two separate versions of reality. Both at least partially involve Jude and Phineas separating while continuing wandering through West Texas, so it's hard to tell the two apart. Just when you think all hope is lost and he has in fact been captured by the authorities the other reality supersedes that and the reader is left feeling giddy and lightheaded.

What is most fucked up and compelling about this book is Poe's unreliability as a narrator, and his luck which usually goes from extremely good to bad in a matter of hours, or minutes. The dinner scene at the end was pretty great, as well. (I love dinner scenes anyway). Some of it reminded me of Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis. Loved it.

Some indispensable quotes:

"The plane lunges forward as she releases the brakes, and we roll down the runway in a hammering rush. I can't take my eyes off Jude. She is calm as a cat lying half asleep, watching birds bathe themselves out of reach. Her dark lips are slightly parted and the muscles stand out along her arms. Her body is all piano wires and sinew. I hold my breath as the plane leaves the earth and Jude turns to me, her face shining."

"My son is dying. He's dying very badly.
-What is a good death?
It isn't comedy.
Haven't you read Shakespeare?"

This could've been made into a Tony Scott movie. That would've been sick....(less)

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Apr 12, 2013 Steve rated it 3 of 5 stars

"Kiss Me, Judas" by Will Christopher Baer is one of those books that I probably would not have bought if I had read the sample text from Kindle beforehand. I'm not a fan of the noir style of writing that Baer used. But once I accepted that I was reading a noir novel, I realized that it was very well executed and it complimented the grittiness and shiftiness of the characters and plot very well.

Baer created a very interesting protagonist, Phineas Poe. Throughout the book, he is never well. He's a...more "Kiss Me, Judas" by Will Christopher Baer is one of those books that I probably would not have bought if I had read the sample text from Kindle beforehand. I'm not a fan of the noir style of writing that Baer used. But once I accepted that I was reading a noir novel, I realized that it was very well executed and it complimented the grittiness and shiftiness of the characters and plot very well.

Baer created a very interesting protagonist, Phineas Poe. Throughout the book, he is never well. He's always mentally impaired in some way. His mental impairment stems from being drunk, hungover, delirious from lack of sleep/food, high or coming down from a high. Since the reader is experiencing the world through the eyes of Phineas, the impairment creates a very distorted point of view that made it difficult to read. This was another aspect of the book that I had to wrestle with and accept before I could enjoy it. Once I did that, then I really felt like I was in Phineas' head. I saw what he saw and felt what he felt. I interpreted the world through him so when he couldn't discern fiction from reality, then neither could I. I was left with my own intuition to figure out what was going on and so was Phineas. I think Baer did an excellent job creating the smudged and dirty lens through which the reader must view Phineas' world.

I learned early on in the text that nothing is what it seems. When Poe wasn't hallucinating or having a confusing flashback, he was being lied to by everyone he encountered. I became accustomed to the fact that nothing and no one was what it appeared to be. I think this worked against Baer. This uncertainty did not give me a feeling of suspense. Rather, it made it harder to surprise me with plot twists since I was already expecting it.

In the midst of all the drugs and dealings with unsavory characters, Baer manages to weave in an unseeming love story. Poe's infatuation with Jude turned out to be a sheep in wolves clothing. His feelings towards Jude were not fond or romantic. It wasn't described as love in a traditional sense. It was an animalistic obsession that was primal and lustful. I thought Baer did a good job creating the only type of love that could exist in his gritty noir crime novel without being cheesy.

The ending seemed like a final reconciliation for Baer. I wonder if he wrestled with the choice of writing an ending for a crime novel or a love story. Was this a brutal noir thriller or a story of unexpected love? I'm not happy with the choice Baer made but I can see how his choice made the most sense and how it was congruent with the characters values and motivations. I'll give Baer credit for ending the book the way he did. I was really hoping Phineas would follow through initial motivations.
(less)

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Feb 20, 2013 Erika rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: thriller

Why do I keep reading books from a genre I don't like? I really struggled with this book. First of all, I hated the way it was written. At times there was no way of way of knowing who was doing the talking or if the text was meant to be a dialogue or a thought. It was too damn confusing. Just 'cause you want to portray a mess of a character it doesn't mean you have to be messy in your writing. Most of the time you didn't know what was going on and, yes, I get it, the main character is mostly hig...more

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Apr 18, 2013 Ipsith rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've been doing a lot of reading lately. One of the books which left a haunting image on my mind is Will Christopher Baer's "Kiss Me, Judas". This is the first in a trilogy about the misadventures of Phineas Poe, erstwhile cop, recently released from a psychiatric hospital. On his first night out Poe meets Jude, a prostitute, who unaccountably agrees to spend the night with him - only to wake up to find himself in a bathtub filled with ice and staples on his skin where his kidney was removed. A...more I've been doing a lot of reading lately. One of the books which left a haunting image on my mind is Will Christopher Baer's "Kiss Me, Judas". This is the first in a trilogy about the misadventures of Phineas Poe, erstwhile cop, recently released from a psychiatric hospital. On his first night out Poe meets Jude, a prostitute, who unaccountably agrees to spend the night with him - only to wake up to find himself in a bathtub filled with ice and staples on his skin where his kidney was removed. A little note says "If you want to live, call 911."

The book is exactly the way it sounds - dark, atmospheric, surreal. Add to this the fact that Poe cannot remember clearly the details of his wife's death - she was found dead on a boat. Either it was a boating accident, or it may be suicide, or Poe might have killed her. It doesn't help that another lady shows up whom Poe mistakes to be his wife back from the dead. Somethings awfully screwy about Poe and the stuff he is going through.

Poe decides he wants his kidney back. But he cant shake off a dark fascination for Jude, and starts pursuing her. It doesn't help that he needs to keep taking morphine to ease the pain. There are too many painful gaps in his memory and Poe may be hurting more people than he knows, people he does not want to hurt.

Baer is fantastic at building the suspense, and his writing evokes Poe's dreamy, incoherent state very well. He builds the story up to a conclusion which asks as many questions as it answers. On the flip side, the reader will probably want to take a break from the bleakness and go back to the next part of the trilogy only a couple of months after completing the first part. You don't want too much of Phineas!

One shouldn't have to wait so long to read books as good as this. Baer's prose is as excruiatingly clean as the snow falling over Denver, falling onto cars, falling past the streetlights -- dark, sweet shimmering sentences, like candy that could kill you. When is this guy's next book coming out? Who is this guy? Great!.Definitely recommended for folks who like to delve into the dark side once in a while.(less)

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Jul 28, 2009 Chad rated it 5 of 5 stars

What an interestingly twisted journey this book takes you on. Never knowing what's around the corner, or who to trust at any given moment. The abandonment which the main character displays, as he carelessly roams through his adventure creates such an anxiety in the story. The drugs themselves are like another character.
I like that the author didn't rely on the depravity to sell the story, but that they were there in shadows, made it so much more interesting.
I'm looking forward to reading the fol...more

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Oct 05, 2009 Molly rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Beautiful dark and woven nicely in a green icebox... This book has defiantly found it’s way on to my favorite books shelf. The basis of the story has been told numerous times. You wake up in a seedy hotel in a bathtub full of ice, and your kidney removed. Never before has anyone told the after story.

Vivid imagery and the perfect words that just sting… This is not a work of classical intent. It isn’t Shakespeare or Dickinson, you won’t find any long draw out explanations, and I guaranty some con...more

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May 10, 2012 Heath Lowrance rated it 4 of 5 stars

The premise sounds hackneyed and unlikely: messed-up ex-cop meets a woman in a bar, gets drunk, fools around, and wakes up in an ice-filled bathtub, missing his kidney. The stuff of urban legend. But Baer takes this absurd idea and turns it into a hallucinatory, melancholy, gorgeously written novel. The protagonist, Poe, skates along the very edges of sanity in his search for the woman-- who he's a little in love (or at least lust) with-- and his journey brings him into contact with an assortmen...more

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Jul 08, 2012 Jason P rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: noir-fiction

Kiss me, Judas....

This book came as a surprise for me. I wasn't sure what I was getting myself in to when I picked this up to read. I knew a bit about it from what the back cover said, but I never thought it would be what it was. This was the first time I have read a neo-noir fictional book, and I have to say that was very.... different. I did like it, although there were some parts that I found very graphic and almost disturbing, but I think they needed to happen for the book to completely make...more

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Mar 06, 2013 Sarah Schantz rated it 2 of 5 stars

Honestly I read almost all of this book but did not finish. There were so many factual errors I was appalled--did no one else read the drafts that came before publication? No one just rips out a catheter because they feel the urge to pee. First of all, with a catheter in there is NO urge--a person urinates without knowing it, and second, it would hurt so much to rip it out. The fact he is worried that his kidney was replaced with heroin is also ridiculous. By the time he worries about this he'd...more

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Sep 03, 2012 NJMetal rated it 3 of 5 stars

KISS ME, JUDAS came highly recommended to me from several different people. It's not hard to understand why. Will Christopher Baer creates a rich story full of deep characters, deceit driven plot and a full bodied prose so exacting it can leave you as disoriented as the protagonist when he is in a drug fuel haze. I just wish I were able to feel as strongly about this book as those who recommended it to me.

KISS ME, JUDAS is written in the noir style. It's a style I've only recently come to read m...more

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May 20, 2012 J.ruzhyo rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This work is an atrocious piece of trash that should be avoided at all cost. I will list a couple of the issues that I have with this book in order to help dissuade possible interested readers from having to deal with the literary torture.
1. It is obvious that the Author has never been to Denver. Locations are wrong there is no description of the city, or even of the mountain backdrops. He misses out on all the possible seeding dealings that could be used like the city of Englewood, and Colfax a...more

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May 06, 2011 Kathryn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

So I finished this book days ago and certain scenes have begun to fade. I really should stick to writing reviews the day after I finish a book. I try to include at least one night's sleep between finishing and reviewing but this has been an overly hectic week all around.

So, like I said, a certain amount of fading has happened yet how I felt while reading is still pretty strong and I really have only good things to say in that area. The first chapter sucked me in, aroused my interest. The idea o...more So I finished this book days ago and certain scenes have begun to fade. I really should stick to writing reviews the day after I finish a book. I try to include at least one night's sleep between finishing and reviewing but this has been an overly hectic week all around.

So, like I said, a certain amount of fading has happened yet how I felt while reading is still pretty strong and I really have only good things to say in that area. The first chapter sucked me in, aroused my interest. The idea of waking up in a bathtub of ice after having a kideny stolen is one of those scenarios that have always interested me, whether or not it is just an urban myth or has in fact happened to people. I would not be surprised either way. Organ thieves are just cool. I probably sound like a total nutt job but this is fiction, not real life, so I tend to gravitate towards disturbed stories.

Above all else, and why I loved this book so much, is that Baer managed to include some of my favorite story traits which I am currently very keen to explore. First, he includes an unreliable narrator. As a reader, I love being unsure as to what exactly is happening, whether or not what I just read was in the character's head. It takes personal perspective and twists it further than is normal. Throw in some seriously depressing memories, maybe a personality disorder, and some drug use and you have what I consider excellent potential, something that is likely to keep me on my toes.

Second, throw in a love story. But this is not storybook romance. This is bloody noir love, love that only the people involved in the relationship seem to comprehend. To the rest of the world, it just looks like some messed up alternate love universe. I did not think of this until right now but Kiss Me, Judas highly resembles Tarantino's film True Romance. I'm ok with that, since I was not thinking of it while reading. If I had, then I'd be slightly annoyed but the book is unique.

I must point out that my noir experience is lacking. I love the settings and characters for the most part but I have found certain author voices to be bland. Not in this case. I loved reading Baer. His writing was smooth and at times surreal, turning into depressing and violent prose. He is an author who pairs words oddly but beautifully and I am a fan of his minimalist style.

There were some deeply disturning scenes, a plus in my opinion as I hate being bored. I was surprised, lots of little shocks here and there. The first half was also quite funny at times, in a dark humor kind of way.

My initital rating was 5 stars but I've lowered it slightly due to the ending. The entire book was rather along the lines of POW and the ending was more of a mini 'pow'. Everything peetered but I have high hopes for book 2. (less)

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Nov 17, 2010 Brandon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: fans of noir fiction

Recommended to Brandon by: Matt Hardy

Shelves: fiction, 2010, neo-noir

Plot: Have you ever loved someone who's mortally wounded you? Phineas Poe, disgraced cop and morphine addict, has just been released from a psych ward when he meets a beautiful woman named Jude in a hotel bar. Red dress, black hair, body like a knife. He takes her back to his room and wakes the next morning in a bathtub full of blood and ice, missing a kidney. Dragging himself from a hospital bed, Phineas discovers he wants to be with Jude like a hunger and he wants to find her and kill her. Fal...more Plot: Have you ever loved someone who's mortally wounded you? Phineas Poe, disgraced cop and morphine addict, has just been released from a psych ward when he meets a beautiful woman named Jude in a hotel bar. Red dress, black hair, body like a knife. He takes her back to his room and wakes the next morning in a bathtub full of blood and ice, missing a kidney. Dragging himself from a hospital bed, Phineas discovers he wants to be with Jude like a hunger and he wants to find her and kill her. Falling for her is the start of a twisted love story that takes him from the snowy streets of Denver to the high plains of Texas where the boundaries between torturer and victim, killer and accomplice, become nightmarishly distorted.

Thoughts: Recommended to me both by fellow staff member, Matty as well as the good folks over at The Cult, I had high hopes for the first of Baer's "Poe" trilogy. Written in the style of a good Quentin Tarintino film, Baer jumps around from past to present so fluidly that it forces you to constantly pay attention. His knack for tying the events that shaped the current state of the books protagonist, Phineaus Poe, to his current mindset is impeccable. You really believed that he was slowly unraveling at the seams. Of course, as in a Tarintino film, the dialogue and the violence are all very stylistic - leads to excellent and addictive narration.

Baer's female lead, the reason for Poe's current situation, Jude, is one of the stronger female leads I've had the pleasure of reading. His descriptions of her really play into why Poe is head over heels for this woman - despite her actions. The majority of the supporting characters are integral to the books progression; you really get the feeling that Baer eliminated any and all filler. The novel is tightly structured and you never get the impression that Baer is out to create an epic for the sake of creating an epic.

I'm very excited for the second and third books in the trilogy - be sure to check back over the summer for subsequent reviews as they've been added them to my summer stack of reading. (less)

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Jun 08, 2012 Leah Lucci rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book was descriptively striking. I liked the imagery and texture. I didn't, however, really like the plot, because the protagonist is drunk/drugged up most of the time, and possibly hallucinating/schizophrenic, so it's hard to tell what's real. The plot is unrealistic, though a lot of the unrealistic elements might all be in the protagonist's mind, so perhaps that's not fair to say. I find unreliable narrators frustrating, overall, so I was biased against this type of storytelling going in....more

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Jul 28, 2012 Angie Golaski rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is mostly set in Denver, which was easy for me to picture. Pretty cool story, although very dark and violent. I was definitely craving something more uplifting by the end, but for me it themed around the things humans need to survive and how we give/get these things, willingly or unwillingly. The narrator ends up loving the woman who harvested his kidney and left him for dead, and she loves him back in her own way...dark read that reminded me of the movie Kalifornication a bit.

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Aug 11, 2009 Livius Nedin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Im not sure I've recommended a book more often than this one. This is book one in the Phineas Poe Trilogy. I have to say the urban legend description of this was rather discouraging. Boy meets girl, girl steals kidney, boy falls in love with girl. Sounds rough but frighteningly good stuff.

Baer's words float along the page and evoke emotion like few other authors. I challenge you to read this book and not want to give Phineas a big hug.

This was my third reading of this book.

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Jul 13, 2009 Johnny rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An original voice in genre writing can often be hard to come by. Someone that embraces the genre, while at the same time brings something fresh and something relevant to the table. Baer does just that.

While the second half couldn't keep pace with the amazing beginning, it still delivers such a trippy and moody world that it kept me fully engaged and wanting to turn the page.

I will definitely read the next book in the series and keep my eye out for anything else by this author.

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Jan 07, 2009 Atlas rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book requires a certain taste and a love for the bizarre, but altogether is a great book. Well I guess this is my first review. Not really a review, but what I personally thought of this book. In my opinion this book has become one of my dear favorites, and that's interesting because when I first read it, I didn't think I was going to like it. Well I got a really nice surprise once I actually got into the book and the characters. I really liked the way Will Christopher Baer made the charact...more

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Oct 14, 2012 Filippo Bossolino rated it 5 of 5 stars

Di libri "allucinati" o "allucinanti" ne ho letti molti, soprattutto in passato, una decina di anni fa, quando più giovane mi sentivo maggiormente vicino a certe dinamiche.
Questo Baciami Giuda è scritto meglio, non è assolutamente banale e non scivola in certi clichè tipici di una letteratura di genere da cui è quasi impossibile sfuggire.
Pochi personaggi, ma ben caratterizzati. Una scrittura "precisa" nel creare uno stato confusionale di fondo che stimola e che inchioda il lettore

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About Will Christopher Baer

Will Christopher Baer is an American author of noir fiction, often delving into sex, violence, mystery and erotica. Currently published works include Kiss Me, Judas, Penny Dreadful and Hell's Half Acre, all of which have since been published in the single volume Phineas Poe. His long-awaited fourth novel, Godspeed, was originally set to be published in 2006, but saw several delays before publisher...more

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Books by Will Christopher Baer

Phineas Poe: Kiss Me, Judas / Penny Dreadful / Hell's Half Acre

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Quotes from Kiss Me, Judas

“And my life went to pieces, like a love letter in the rain.” — 29 people liked it

“I am so stupid, so easily fooled. It's really almost funny. If I could lift a finger I would gladly kill myself.” — 7 people liked it

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Kiss Me, Judas (Phineas Poe #1)

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