- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Serpent's Tail (10 May 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1852428554
- ISBN-13: 978-1852428556
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 810,695 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Booze and Burn
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Royston Blake recounts another tough tale from the crap town of Mangel. Still Head Doorman at Hoppers, Blake begins to notice a change in general punter behaviour. The norm of beery violence and lechery has given way to trance-like stares and nonsensical blatherings. Particularly amongst the younger age bracket, which seems to be dominant these days. Puzzled, he scratches his head and seeks solace at the bottom of a pint glass. And when Doug the shopkeeper offers him a bounty of 400 fags and 400 cans of lager to sort out his teenage daughter's undesirable boyfriend - an enigmatic outsider with a curious pull on the youth of Mangel - Blake's solace looks to be in the bag for at least a couple of weeks. But things don?t quite go according to plan. So begins Blake's journey from pillar of the Mangel community to local pariah. Can he rise above it this time? Will Nathan the barman help him out? And where has Finney got to?
About the Author
Charlie Williams was born in 1971 in Worcester. He read English at Swansea University. During a brief visit to Worcester he was arrested for fighting a bouncer and bound over to keep the peace for six months. He moved to London but couldn't resist the lure of his hometown and moved back to Worcester in 2003. His first novel, Deadfolk, was published in 2004. 45
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First Sentence
I had me eye on her the minute she stepped around the corner up yonder and began wending her way Blakeward. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
I had me eye on her the minute she stepped around the corner up yonder and began wending her way Blakeward. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ohhh me Swede,
By
This review is from: Fags and Lager (Paperback)
I think Charlie Williams is one of the underrated geniuses in British literature today. The Mangel Trilogy and Blakey are fantastic, I've read all 3. I enjoyed fags and lager a lot, on a par with Deadfolk Id say. The 1* reviewer talks about reading this in a "strange voice", Id say i experimented with a number of accents for Blakey, none spoiled my enjoyment of his narrative.
Blakey is a antihero, Williams hasn't created a protagonist to cheer on or sympathise with, but I found that quite compelling, Blakey drives me mad, but that doesn't mean I don't love him so... There's plenty of other characters to warm to as well, Im a big Nathan fan, he would make my top 5 fictional bartenders without doubt. To anyone who has spent time in a crap town, I'm sure Mangel and his inhabitants will resonate, Im sure ive met half the characters in the book, and Blakey does remind me a lot of a doorman of a bar i used to frequent in Wolverhampton...
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I loved this book - I must be sick,
This review is from: Fags and Lager (Paperback)
Sick and twisted humour similar to the League of Gentlemen but disturbingly realistic and what was even more shocking to me was that it was full of characters that were not too dissimilar to people on the fringes of my adolescence.
The `hero' of the tale is delusional, dysfunctional and very difficult to like but there is some peculiar charm to him, which is helped by the fact that the characters that surround him are even more unpleasant. His life throughout this book goes from one disaster to another whilst he crashes around oblivious to the obvious and causing more problems than he solves. As a crime novel this is not a polite drawing room drama - expect obscenities, perversions, torture and a callous disregard for all that is decent - but it grips with the twists and turns that a good story should have. What made this book even more special for me was the humour - dark, twisted and sick - which had me laughing out loud with guilty pleasure. No doubt some people will hate this book - or not understand it - but I loved it and can't wait to read the rest of the series.
1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Car-boot bargain???,
By jackie sharp (herefordshire) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Fags and Lager (Paperback)
Well You make your mind up.
I picked this book up last week... 3 for a pound, they were. Got this and two others. Good books, both. This one, however was a huge disappointment. I thought it was going to be a funny, irreverant look at todays society. Unfortunately the anti-hero was, to me, totally unlikeable. The story was far-fetched (which is fine, if it works, and this one didn't). I hate political correctness and was led to believe, by the back cover that this would be in the vein of a very dark observer of human nature.. Frankie Boyle,with knobs on, perhaps. Not at all. Charlie Williams is as lame as the cripple that he very half-heartedly mocks. I bravely soldiered on, waiting for the amusing and enlightening denouemont. Lame and predictable. The euphemisms and dialect of Royston Blake (who tells the entire story) are annoying in the extreme. I found myself reading to myself in a strange voice. I got sick and tired of hearing about his swede and, quite frankly did not care about him one way or the other.(Surely important when creating a character?) This book is for the Flavour of the Month type critics and not the general reader. Back to the original point? Well I laughed three times. 11p a laugh. Car boot bargain...you make your mind up.
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