Lost in Juarez [Paperback]

 

 

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I bought this a while back and it has sat on the shelf next to the Barney Thomson's. But with it not being Barney I could never really work up the energy to get started on it. After a bout of virus-induced insomnia I picked it up at 2a.m. with the intention of it putting me back to sleep, and then kept going till daybreak.

What a fantastic book, great characters, great insight and understanding of both the Scottish Highlands and London. He paints a fantastic picture of the scenery around Ben Wyvis. Good plot, very believable and really funny in places with excellent use of language.

Loved it!

Having read all the Barney Thomsons, I tried this and it was great!
For me its the sort of book thats a bit slow on the uptake then sucks you in until you just cant put it down, then you feel fed up because you know it'll take ages to find another book this good!
I love Lindsays view on life, his dark humour and the way he creates great characters you really warm to, then kills them off at the turn of a page!

Its a shame Lake Weston didnt just pop in the barbers for a Frank Sinatra '62!

Great Great book, look forward to the next Douglas Lindsay offering

Lost in Juarez is a bad book.
Just like Wag the Dog is a bad movie.

Douglas Lindsay has written a novel which has nothing to do with his Barney Thomson series. And I have to say: It is a remarkable piece of work. Due to the fact that there are only seven of Barney's bloody barbershop books I was forced to read other books as well. Lindsay's newest baby manages to knock out the better part of this field which I'd like to roughly subsume as "the rest".
Very often suspenseful novels tend to have the problem of "overdone will to be thrilling". The authors create dangling cliffhangers at the end of 90 percent of all chapters. This is mostly too annoying to make me write a positive statement about the thing. Not so in the case of "Lost in Juarez". There are of course some mind-frizzling cliffhangers in it but they are woven in wisely.
Other novels take 169 pages till something happens that makes me want to read on voluntarily. Not "Juarez". The story comes in a pack of 212 neatly arranged pages; almost all of them sprinkled with a very suspenseful and well arranged plot.

There are minor constraints like some of the major and most sympathetic characters demising quite fast; but this is just because Lindsay has concerted his plot in such a compressed way.

The story is about an author of children's books who is enraged by the fact that one of his books wasn't allowed to be published. This was due to the fact that it dealt in a judicial way with the Prime Minister of Great Britain. Having written books for kids long enough and being able to spent a lot of money on publishing actually whatever he wants, he decides to write something completely different: It's called Axis of Evil and the media call it the Animal Farm / 1984 of its day. Lake Weston, the classic and tragic antihero of the story is assisted by some inscrutable conspiracy theorist and most of all by his personal Batman / Kafka / Jesus: Bob Dylan.
When in danger and chased by Police or MI5, Weston injects Dylan like morphine into his auditory veins. This is particularly interesting because Lindsay, who is obviously himself an expert on the field, thoroughly selected particular songs to fit to particular moments in the plot. One can already see and hear the movie adaptation of the story, highlighted or actually shaped by the striking Dylan-soundtrack.
The protagonist is drawn into deeper and darker trials and tribulations while his counterpart - PM Pinky and his personal Brain - try everything to stop the avalanche launched by Weston's literary sensation.

What makes this novel distinguishable from all the uniform rest is Lindsay's individual and sophisticated style. His sentences have just this little extra bit of ironic reverberation. His hero is somewhat rootless; he has sexual intercourse and drinks alcohol, is divorced twice and can busk a Dylan track like hell to safe his arse from freezing. When everything in Weston's life seems to be doomed, Lindsay comes up with a pleading for the really important things in life. But not without using great statements like

"You're Franklin T. Wildebeest and Confuscious Z. Spudsucker? How are you going to help me? Get me a fifty percent bigger dick in ten days?"

Lindsay. Lost in Juarez. Chatham. 2008. Page 187

The fact that Lindsay's characters love using explicit language and behave mostly in a slightly bizarre way was already established in his extraordinary Barney Thomson - Septology. But all the swearing and brutal murder is only scattered when the magician Lindsay feels its necessity. Otherwise he and his characters are indeed capable of the most subtle and brilliant language.

Comparing the Septology with "Lost in Juarez" I have to admit that there is not as much humour in the latter as the reader encounters following Barney Thomson. But that is exactly what "Juarez" needs. It is more serious and more credible and therefore something completely different. It is more mature than the other books.

I personally like one aspect in the Barney Thomson novels most. The calmness. The peace of Barney standing in the barbershop and doing just nothing. Thinking about stuff. The rubbish small talk with some random customer. Bloody murder just as a negligibility. Those features are missing in "Juarez" and that suits this new conspiracy-thriller just perfectly well.

"Lost in Juarez" grabs the reader by the neck and shakes him short but firmly like a lion does with his prey. But in this case one isn't dead afterwards but being literally shown the power of a book.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Fab book
What a read! Great characters. Great story. Great ending.

DL, as with his other books, produces a rip-roaring narrative that blasts along - continually having digs at... Read more

Published on 19 Nov 2008 by Fred Hannah

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