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Phineas Poe #1-3
Phineas Poe: Kiss Me, Judas / Penny Dreadful / Hell's Half Acre
Following the success of this three novels in the Phineas Poe series, MacAdam/Cage will now release the omnibus edition of the trio. In trade paperback and priced at $19.00, readers of the Baer will now be able to buy the trilogy in one handy volume. The novels follow antihero Phineas Poe, ex cop and his love for Jude. Together they try to make sense of their past and navigate the internal landscape he calls hell's half acre. The Phineas Poe trilogy includes Kiss Me Judas, Penny Dreadful, Hell's Half Acre
857 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2005
8 people are currently reading
427 people want to read
About the author
Will Christopher Baer
10 books332 followersWill 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 MacAdam/Cage finally announced a release date of July 2009. The novel has since been delayed indefinitely. He shares a fan base with fellow authors Craig Clevenger and Stephen Graham Jones.
Born in Mississippi in 1966. As a child, he lived in Montreal and Italy. He attended highschool in Memphis, TN and moved on to attend Tulane University in New Orleans, LA but he soon dropped out. However, he received a B.A. at Memphis State. He then headed west in 1990 and lived in Portland & Eugene Oregon for several years. He received an MFA in 1995 from Jack Kerouac School at Naropa Institute in Boulder, CO. He has lived in California since 1996, primarily in the Bay Area and L.A.
Born in Mississippi in 1966. As a child, he lived in Montreal and Italy. He attended highschool in Memphis, TN and moved on to attend Tulane University in New Orleans, LA but he soon dropped out. However, he received a B.A. at Memphis State. He then headed west in 1990 and lived in Portland & Eugene Oregon for several years. He received an MFA in 1995 from Jack Kerouac School at Naropa Institute in Boulder, CO. He has lived in California since 1996, primarily in the Bay Area and L.A.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
April 3, 2008
There's a great deal that one can say about the novels. First, they were very enjoyable and Mr. Baer produces some beautiful lyric passages in his prose. I left a pile of notes throughout and even more highlighted sections. I haven't written so much because I enjoy dissecting books more than I enjoy dissecting conversations and had not decided on the approach. I like Kiss Me, Judas very much, and Penny Dreadful most of all, and Hell's Half Acre least of all, though it possesses points of excellence. In "Hell's Half Acre", too many lose ends, too many fragments, too little development leaves me less than pleased. I found it disappointing to see the multiple personalities used in Penny Dreadful shelved without comment and Miller was such an ultimately uninteresting villain - I did not like that Jude appeared to fear him. It did not feel credible. I loved Penny Dreadful - essentially the plot in all three are somewhat garish, but the style and technique applied make them special.
I would say Penny Dreadful works best of all - Eve elicits more sympathy than Jude, and I recall I often laughed aloud in that book in a way I never did in the other two. More, I liked the villain, Theseus the Glove, more than the antagonist's encountered in the others. He reminds me of the character in Beckett's Molloy set on the trail of that protagonist - another detective searching for an elusive, disintegrating protagonist. The way that the narrative flows from viewpoint to viewpoint and the exploration of such themes as identity and reality, etc, are handled with great skill. The author's Joycean influence shows throughout the whole thing; when an author drags "Ulysses" on stage, especially one as ambitious as I suppose this one to be, in his own way, he risks having himself compared to Joyce, especially when he drops in chunks from the text itself. More often than not, being compared to Joyce results in an unfavorable judgment. It was bold. The author reveals his narration even as he criticizes it, which is something that I enjoy encountering when it is well done. I think the scene that stands out the most for me is when Phineas meets Christian/Chrome and Chrome announces "I am her paramour" and Phinease responds in his narration with an "Okay." One has to work a bit harder in Penny Dreadful in the others and the narrative comes together quite nicely. I like how it does not resolve all questions - such as where the "Pale" comes from. That, and of course, the climax, where Eve shows up - the thought of her skin stripped from her hands disturbs me even now and remains all too palpable in my thoughts. The comparison of Poe to Stephen Dedalus, a character I always related too, won my admiration, too. To wrap it up, I like how I can never be sure I understand anything too clearly about the books, since every narrator suffers from extreme problems - Phineas' veracity is called into question over and over again that, by the end of the series, I could argue he never left the hospital at all and this is merely self-generated fantasy akin to what my father creates in his own mind to pass the time.
I would say Penny Dreadful works best of all - Eve elicits more sympathy than Jude, and I recall I often laughed aloud in that book in a way I never did in the other two. More, I liked the villain, Theseus the Glove, more than the antagonist's encountered in the others. He reminds me of the character in Beckett's Molloy set on the trail of that protagonist - another detective searching for an elusive, disintegrating protagonist. The way that the narrative flows from viewpoint to viewpoint and the exploration of such themes as identity and reality, etc, are handled with great skill. The author's Joycean influence shows throughout the whole thing; when an author drags "Ulysses" on stage, especially one as ambitious as I suppose this one to be, in his own way, he risks having himself compared to Joyce, especially when he drops in chunks from the text itself. More often than not, being compared to Joyce results in an unfavorable judgment. It was bold. The author reveals his narration even as he criticizes it, which is something that I enjoy encountering when it is well done. I think the scene that stands out the most for me is when Phineas meets Christian/Chrome and Chrome announces "I am her paramour" and Phinease responds in his narration with an "Okay." One has to work a bit harder in Penny Dreadful in the others and the narrative comes together quite nicely. I like how it does not resolve all questions - such as where the "Pale" comes from. That, and of course, the climax, where Eve shows up - the thought of her skin stripped from her hands disturbs me even now and remains all too palpable in my thoughts. The comparison of Poe to Stephen Dedalus, a character I always related too, won my admiration, too. To wrap it up, I like how I can never be sure I understand anything too clearly about the books, since every narrator suffers from extreme problems - Phineas' veracity is called into question over and over again that, by the end of the series, I could argue he never left the hospital at all and this is merely self-generated fantasy akin to what my father creates in his own mind to pass the time.
September 20, 2009
WCB is awesome. Reading his work is like taking a huge slug of cheap bourbon. You are warm, excited, dirty, inebriated, shocked and fascinated. He writes with such unabashed, noir mello-drama that it can seem trite if you don't understand where he's headed. If you can suspend your disbelief/giggles around all those filthy, shadowy alley ways and strange tongue stealing games, you'll get to his ultimate message. And then you'll stand back in awe before reading it again.
January 12, 2021
Perhaps it was the time and the place that I read these.
I enjoy the notion that there could be something grimdark going on below the surface of any society. Perhaps because I was living in DC at the time, these books really resonated with me.
I enjoy the notion that there could be something grimdark going on below the surface of any society. Perhaps because I was living in DC at the time, these books really resonated with me.
December 14, 2020
Interesting. Reminds me of Andrew Vachss.
June 13, 2025
Excellent noir! Hallucinogenic, intense and absolutely over the top. One of this books I just couldn’t put down.
August 11, 2025
Without a doubt one of my favorites. Each novel felt like a fever dream can't stop rereading these books but they are sadly his only 3 published novels. Still hoping one day he releases godspeed.
April 4, 2008
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—Kiss Me, Judas; Penny Dreadful; and Hell’s Half Acre—is narrated by the disgraced ex-cop turned ex-junkie of the same name. In Kiss Me, Judas, Poe wakes up in a bathtub full of ice, missing a kidney. He spends the rest of the novel chasing the hooker, Jude, who stole it from him, bumping into other characters—some friends, some enemies—and inadvertently dragging them into this mess, if they weren’t involved already. Though the novel is a dark neo-noir, it is also sophomoric. Usually adding the term sophomoric to any review (since authors are supposed to be the deft and mature minds of the world) is a slight, but it works in Kiss Me, Judas. Hell’s Half Acre sheds a bit of the noir skin, but ends the series strong as Poe and the other surviving characters participate in the making of a snuff film in which no one knows who is going to be the one to die.
The problem is Penny Dreadful. Most fans of the series are split on this middle book. You either think it’s the best or the worst of the three. Unlike Kiss Me, Judas and Hell’s Half Acre, Penny Dreadful jumps through several character’s viewpoints, most of which end up sounding far too similar. Phineas Poe unknowingly enters into “the game of tongues”—a subcultural game turned deadly when one of the role players begins killing people instead of simply biting their tongue to claim victory. The problem? It’s incredibly dorky. We’re talking LARPing (Live Action Role Playing) dorky.
Where Kiss Me, Judas and Hell’s Half Acre are jumping off three stars, reaching higher, Penny Dreadful is a two star shoulder shrug of what it should have been—a mild side note to a much longer novel or a different novel that didn’t involve Phineas Poe. The events that take place in Penny Dreadful seem more set apart, disconnected from the bookend novels. The minor Kiss Me, Judas characters could have been involved, made it a fun side-by-side comparison of the universe Will Christopher Baer has created, but the force of the love/hate relationship between Jude and Phineas Poe is diluted by what should have been a small plotline. Though the trilogy is graphic in violence and sexual abuse (including gang rape), Baer also displays scenes of incredible tenderness in this twisted mess, perhaps more tender because of coldness of the surrounding text. Flashback scenes to Poe’s terminally diseased wife are some of the trilogy’s finest. Despite the flaws of Penny Dreadful and what can be viewed as too many loose ends come the end of Hell’s Half Acre, Baer has crafted a sleek, quick-read trilogy for fans of the darker side of fiction. Three stars.
The Phineas Poe trilogy—Kiss Me, Judas; Penny Dreadful; and Hell’s Half Acre—is narrated by the disgraced ex-cop turned ex-junkie of the same name. In Kiss Me, Judas, Poe wakes up in a bathtub full of ice, missing a kidney. He spends the rest of the novel chasing the hooker, Jude, who stole it from him, bumping into other characters—some friends, some enemies—and inadvertently dragging them into this mess, if they weren’t involved already. Though the novel is a dark neo-noir, it is also sophomoric. Usually adding the term sophomoric to any review (since authors are supposed to be the deft and mature minds of the world) is a slight, but it works in Kiss Me, Judas. Hell’s Half Acre sheds a bit of the noir skin, but ends the series strong as Poe and the other surviving characters participate in the making of a snuff film in which no one knows who is going to be the one to die.
The problem is Penny Dreadful. Most fans of the series are split on this middle book. You either think it’s the best or the worst of the three. Unlike Kiss Me, Judas and Hell’s Half Acre, Penny Dreadful jumps through several character’s viewpoints, most of which end up sounding far too similar. Phineas Poe unknowingly enters into “the game of tongues”—a subcultural game turned deadly when one of the role players begins killing people instead of simply biting their tongue to claim victory. The problem? It’s incredibly dorky. We’re talking LARPing (Live Action Role Playing) dorky.
Where Kiss Me, Judas and Hell’s Half Acre are jumping off three stars, reaching higher, Penny Dreadful is a two star shoulder shrug of what it should have been—a mild side note to a much longer novel or a different novel that didn’t involve Phineas Poe. The events that take place in Penny Dreadful seem more set apart, disconnected from the bookend novels. The minor Kiss Me, Judas characters could have been involved, made it a fun side-by-side comparison of the universe Will Christopher Baer has created, but the force of the love/hate relationship between Jude and Phineas Poe is diluted by what should have been a small plotline. Though the trilogy is graphic in violence and sexual abuse (including gang rape), Baer also displays scenes of incredible tenderness in this twisted mess, perhaps more tender because of coldness of the surrounding text. Flashback scenes to Poe’s terminally diseased wife are some of the trilogy’s finest. Despite the flaws of Penny Dreadful and what can be viewed as too many loose ends come the end of Hell’s Half Acre, Baer has crafted a sleek, quick-read trilogy for fans of the darker side of fiction. Three stars.
January 30, 2014
It actually took me quite a while to get around to read the Phineas Poe trilogy, but glad I did. I just wish there more Will Christopher Baer out there to read.
Kiss me, judas was so easy to get in and such a whirl wind of what is going to happen next? As a reader, Baer makes you somewhat fall in love with Jude and hope that the addict Poe will somehow make it through the whole thing. You're introduced to such interesting characters and no one is who they seem. The ending is so good and you don't hate Jude for what she did to Phineas.
Penny dreadful was not what I expected, and of the three books, this was actually my least favorite. It was not written in the same style as the other two, which for me wasn't that enjoyable.
Hell's half acre, man, so glad Baer wrote this book and brought Jude back into our lives. It is so fast paced and one big twist after another. It completely rounded out the trilogy and justified Poe's existence. Very well written and I couldn't stop reading till I hit the last page.
Highly recommend this series of books to anyone!
I can only hope Godspeed some day comes out and graces us with one more Will Christopher Baer novel!
Kiss me, judas was so easy to get in and such a whirl wind of what is going to happen next? As a reader, Baer makes you somewhat fall in love with Jude and hope that the addict Poe will somehow make it through the whole thing. You're introduced to such interesting characters and no one is who they seem. The ending is so good and you don't hate Jude for what she did to Phineas.
Penny dreadful was not what I expected, and of the three books, this was actually my least favorite. It was not written in the same style as the other two, which for me wasn't that enjoyable.
Hell's half acre, man, so glad Baer wrote this book and brought Jude back into our lives. It is so fast paced and one big twist after another. It completely rounded out the trilogy and justified Poe's existence. Very well written and I couldn't stop reading till I hit the last page.
Highly recommend this series of books to anyone!
I can only hope Godspeed some day comes out and graces us with one more Will Christopher Baer novel!
January 29, 2020
Will Christopher Baer is a phenomenal author. He captures emotions and thoughts unlike any author I've read, and although I don't think he is the best author out there, he is my personal favorite. Phineas Poe consists of three novels, each of which is unique and strange in its own way. The characters are brutally raw, and the story unfolds with many twists, all of which I inhaled. [that's all I want to say for now.]
August 8, 2012
If you like noir fiction and plot twists, this is the motherlode. I've read it twice so far, and I'm still not exactly sure how to describe it other than "life-changing". I never knew there were books this dark. Admittedly, since it consists of three full novels, it is an undertaking, but one that is well worth the time. Prepare to be sucked in, and expect to come out a little different than when you went in.
October 4, 2019
I started reading this trilogy in the early 2000's. It's late 2019 and I'm finally finished. It's not because it's long. I didn't start and stop because it wasn't good. I started and stopped and then finished it because I wanted to take my time with it. So unusual, so interesting. Not for everyone, definitely for me.
July 27, 2007
I loved this book, it was fun to read. If you are easily offended, don't even sit in the same room as this book. The characters were great and the story line was addictive. I had problems putting the book down.
June 17, 2010
Brilliant Stuff. Intense, occaionally halucigenic prose, the protagonist wandering in and out of a drug induced haze. The term "noir" is not nearly dark enough for these books. Frightening Stuff!!!
If you aren't chilled by Jude, Check with a neurologist NOW!!!!
If you aren't chilled by Jude, Check with a neurologist NOW!!!!
March 29, 2014
This is my favorite set of books. The writing is perfect. Dark and psychological. The drug-induced and famished protagonist just reads like a despicable, frail being and his observations and inner dialogue is believable. Do not pass up this series.
August 5, 2016
This collection is dark. DARK. But funny. And, occasionally, gorgeous. And what fantastic writing. Book one and book three were more to my taste than the gamer book in the middle, but Phineas Poe is delicious. If you like bleak and broody, go for it.
March 2, 2008
An interesting walk through classic urban legends, a world of live action role players and psycho-sexual darkness to make any geek smile.
June 12, 2008
nice neo-noir.
July 6, 2008
amazing, amazing, amazing. i love this for its dark humor, sarcasm, aphoristic language, imagery, etc. love it.
February 18, 2009
Simply amazing.
November 11, 2009
Reading Hell's Half Acre for class.
December 6, 2009
AMAZING trilogy of novels.
February 11, 2014
This book is going to take your breath away. Best book I have ever read.
May 25, 2011
This book is fucking AMAZING. It will blow your mind.
August 20, 2011
Excellent pitch dark noir. Each book is it's own wild and weird story. One of my favorite books of all now. Highly recommended.
July 28, 2011
This omnibus is one of the greatest reading experiences of my life. I was blown away on almost every page.
January 1, 2012
I am not even sure where to begin describing it but I loved it!
June 14, 2012
This is a great trilogy all in one book. The characters are dark and messed up but they seem "real". I couldn't put it down!
June 17, 2012
Neo Noir at it's very finest.
August 8, 2014
My favorite trilogy. I love this author.
November 16, 2015
All time favorite series. I cannot recommend these books more.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews