(June 22, 2022) Jason Starr’s forthcoming science fiction thriller The Next Time I Die has been optioned by Executive Producer Gilbert Adler (Constantine, Valkyrie, Superman Returns). The highly anticipated novel, which is being published by Hard Case Crime later this month, will be the first ever science fiction thriller from Jason Starr, the two-time Anthony Award-winning crime novelist (Twisted City).
“Once my team and I started reading, we couldn’t stop,” said Adler. “We usually can tell where a plot is heading, but this book has genuine surprises and twists you just don’t see coming! Move over Harlan Coben, this sci-fi thriller will be the next ‘big deal’ on a streaming service.”
In Starr’s mind-bending novel The Next Time I Die, New York defense attorney Steven Blitz is stabbed trying to break up a crime. He should have died on the spot. Instead, he wakes up the next morning, stuck in a new reality, one that is somewhere between Philip K. Dick and The Twilight Zone. There’s a different president in the White House; a loving family when he’d been on the verge of divorce; more money in the bank than he’s ever seen. There’s a dark side, though: in this world, Steven Blitz is not a good man. And now he’s got to get himself out of serious trouble without even knowing what it is he’s done wrong.
“Gil is one the best producers in the business,” says Starr. “We have a similar vision for The Next Time I Die and I’m thrilled to be working with him.”
Ahead of publication, The Next Time I Die is already receiving major attention:
“The Next Time I Die is a paranoid noir freakout playing its own one-of-a-kind game… and a shameless page-turner.” —Joe Hill
“Mind-bending, genre-blending…the story is dark, twisted, funny, frightening, and—in a strange way—uplifting.”—Booklist
“So fresh and clever and compelling. I don’t know when I last turned pages so quickly.”—Ian Rankin
“As in the best nightmarish noir, Starr ups the ante.”—Publishers Weekly
“I really don’t know how Jason Starr does it: I start out thinking I’m only going to read a chapter of The Next Time I Die and an hour later I’m on page eighty.”—Bret Easton Ellis
“Beautifully and perfectly crafted. Halfway between Christopher Nolan’s Memento and a story by Philip K. Dick.”—Matteo Strukul
“With The Next Time I Die, Jason Starr has taken a next level leap… It’s like Philip K. Dick is still with us and has just written a new, brain-frying work of New York noir.”— Brian Greene, Criminal Element
THE NEXT TIME I DIE will be published on June 28, 2022 by Hard Case Crime, the award-winning publisher Hard Case Crime renowned for publishing some of the biggest names in the history of mystery and crime fiction, including Megan Abbott, Lawrence Block, James M. Cain, Erle Stanley Gardner, David Goodis, Stephen King, Ed McBain, Mickey Spillane, Donald E. Westlake, and Cornell Woolrich.
For more details follow Hard Case Crime on Twitter and Facebook and follow Jason Starr on Twitter and Instagram.