A Serpent Uncoiled is the second novel from North London's Simon Spurrier. Spurrier, a man of many talents, is a decorated graphic novelist, screenwriter and writer of prose novels, and with this offering, invites us into a London more sordid and depraved than the worst imaginings of us mere mortals.
The protagonist is Dan Shaper, ex-underworld enforcer turned private eye (a term he loathes). Plagued by a sickness stemming from guilt at his misdeeds, he spends his days self-medicating with an arsenal of drugs that would shame Keith Moon. Building up a tolerance to the drugs, Shaper is forced into regular periods of nightmarish detox in order to sustain their long-term effectiveness. It is on the cusp of one such detox that Shaper is called upon by a enigmatic quasi-guru by the name of George Glass, and tasked with protecting him from his impending murder.
It should be pointed out, A Serpent Uncoiled is no mere private eye tale; this is a book unlike anything else in the genre. While there are perceptible nods to the tradition of hardboiled detective fiction, this is about as non-derivative a novel as could possibly be conceived. Spurrier's prose style is complex; he has a rich lexicon and he's not afraid to use it. The opening paragraph, a sublime piece of scene-setting, is a case in point -
"London hacked up its lungs and glistened.
The November drizzle held off for the first time in three nights, but the air seemed choked regardless: a clammy ambient moisture caressing slick bricks and grey, leafless trees. On ledges through Soho, pigeons choked in moronic bedragglement, while brave smokers lurked in smoggy palls outside steaming pubs, muttering at the indignity. In doorways along Oxford Street tramps clutched at dreaming dogs for warmth, and in Camden even the dealers - initially optimistic at the break in the rain - took to lurking near kebab shops and club queues, leeching excess heat, to mumble their mantras."
This is a London reminiscent of Gotham City at its worst, but the horrors that lurk there go far beyond deranged asylum escapees or corrupt cops. Through Shaper's anthropomorphic Sickness, a potent brew of warped hallucinations and delusions, and a storyline incorporating Eastern mysticism, Spurrier creates a world acrimoniously divorced from reality. There is a powerful fusion of distorted mental imagery and the preternatural, which, combined with the unabashed violence, often leaves one reeling.
Just as the atmosphere is dazzlingly weird, so are the cast. Aside from Shaper, there are; Vince, a stereotypical enforcer in every respect bar his overt homosexuality (and covert bisexuality); the mystic George Glass, who claims to be 3,000 years old but suffering from amnesia; desirable but entirely deceitful clairvoyant Mary, and the Coram family, Shaper's one-time employers, consisting of spoiled underworld offspring Dave and Phyllis, and their indulgent mother Maud, a corpulent lounge lizard who oversees their criminal enterprise. For characters this perfectly absurd, one is usually forced to look to Sir Terry Pratchett.
However, this is by no means the Discworld, and Spurrier is as bloodthirsty as the best of crime writers. The violence, though shown through the prism of Shaper's fractured sanity, is graphic, and A Serpent Uncoiled should be approached with caution by the squeamish. Indeed, this is by no means a mainstream read. The prose is admittedly less accessible than that of much crime fiction, but this is a refreshing approach. With each elegantly sculpted paragraph, Spurrier refuses to be dictated to by the whim of the `average reader.' As a result, those of us with the staying power have been gifted a book than fully deserves to become a cult classic. As of late July, this is the most original book of the year, and it will take a work of staggering outlandishness to wrest that title from Spurrier's claws.
