- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins; New edition edition (4 Oct 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0006498035
- ISBN-13: 978-0006498032
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 244,761 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
Divorcing Jack:
‘As sharp as a pint of snake-bite… Richly paranoid and very funny’
Sunday Times
Cycle of Violence:
‘Fast-paced, very black and very funny. Roddy Doyle meets Carl Hiaasen’
Independent on Sunday
Of Wee Sweetie Mice and Men:
‘Fast, furious, riotously funny, and at the end, never a dry eye in the house’
Mail on Sunday
Empire State:
‘Bateman on epic form in gloriously over-the-top saga’
Daily Telegraph
Product Description
New novel from the bestselling author of Divorcing Jack and Empire State.
Nothing much ever happens in Niagara Falls. It is a sleepy town full of honeymooners and tourists, and that’s how Inspector Frank Corrigan likes it. He saw enough trouble as a cop in Northern Ireland. Now he’s happy dealing with parking offences and the odd drunk, although since his wife has left him and taken their daughter, ‘happy’ may not quite be the word.
But then a reincarnated Native American princess by the name of Lelewala canoes over the Falls and survives. Or so she says. And Frank falls in love. And finds himself confronting the greatest terrorist of the age at an international gathering of drug dealers. And then the music starts…
Funny, moving, crazy, dark and thought-provoking, this is Bateman at his brilliant best.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I hate to say this but I really really liked the EARLY Colin Bateman. Divorcing Jack and Cycle of Violence had something very different about them. Their humour was sharp, dark and daring. Their plots were, okay, a bit mad, but something a bit different. Bateman made a big mistake shifting his characters across the Atlantic. He almost got away with it with Empire State but I was sad to feel that it really didn't work with Maid of the Mist. To me, I felt like I was reading a children's book about a band of madcap small-time coppers battling against evil baddies - and pulling it off. It just didn't work. It really didn't seem plausible. I can see why he did it - to attract a wider audience, and maybe the Americans will like it, but well, I think on this side of the water, we've come to expect something a bit more subtle. Bateman, stick to Northern Ireland. Please.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is not Batemans best work, and given how good his best is, that givens him room to fall a long way short.
It's taken me a while to figger out why Maid in the Mist just didn't click, but in retrospect it's the unreality of the tale. His best books (and I really recommend Driving Big Davie as his funniest, or Empire State as his masterpiece) build up to a madcap pace. They start in a small, grounded, believable situation of a slightly nutty Irishman, before spinning off into wonderful moments drawn from the quirks of life. (as a guy who once got caught on a beach with my `gf' by landing crafts full of marines, I can testify that really crazy things DO happen).
Maid jumps in at the deep end, and that just didn't work for me. The eponymous character herself comes out of the blue early on, stretched my incredibility too far, so the tale just didn't carry me along.
Now don't get me wrong, it's not a bad book, but it's not great either. Bateman has given us greatly superior writing in small episodes that grow up into pure mad genius.
It's taken me a while to figger out why Maid in the Mist just didn't click, but in retrospect it's the unreality of the tale. His best books (and I really recommend Driving Big Davie as his funniest, or Empire State as his masterpiece) build up to a madcap pace. They start in a small, grounded, believable situation of a slightly nutty Irishman, before spinning off into wonderful moments drawn from the quirks of life. (as a guy who once got caught on a beach with my `gf' by landing crafts full of marines, I can testify that really crazy things DO happen).
Maid jumps in at the deep end, and that just didn't work for me. The eponymous character herself comes out of the blue early on, stretched my incredibility too far, so the tale just didn't carry me along.
Now don't get me wrong, it's not a bad book, but it's not great either. Bateman has given us greatly superior writing in small episodes that grow up into pure mad genius.
Format:Paperback
If your a fan of Colin Bateman this is one to forget. He has even said that he was going on holiday and just took inspiration from that and he couldn't be bothered to go to Scotland to research where the book was originally set. Laziness.
I love SOME of Colins work but some of it is just crap like this. Difficult to read. Easy to put down. If you want to read a good one by Colin that isn't his usual, go for Mohammad Maguire instaid.
I love SOME of Colins work but some of it is just crap like this. Difficult to read. Easy to put down. If you want to read a good one by Colin that isn't his usual, go for Mohammad Maguire instaid.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
I've read worse
This book was okay. The plot was far-fetched (actually, it was almost completely unbelievable) and violence was all over the place, but that's okay in this kind of fiction, as long... Read more
Published on 20 Dec 2002 by Kelly P. Vincent
King of Comedy
Colin Bateman... marry me! Maid of the Mist is a cracking read - a rollercoaster of emotional turmoil. Bizarre images still fill my head when I try and sleep at night... Read more
Published on 13 July 2000
Enthralling like a friend's amusing older brother.
One of my favourite ever books is Empire State and therefore it was with aprehension that I read Maid Of The Mist. I needn't have been aprehensive. Read more
Published on 6 April 2000
Not as many laughs as the Starkey books, but worth *****
Having read the hilarious "Divorcing Jack" and the disturbing "Cycle of Violence", I have been eager to get my hands on anything else by Colin Bateman. Read more
Published on 28 Jan 2000 by Mr. A. J. Middleton
Niagra Falls
Very good from start to finish. Lots of characters (most of them against our hero, Frank Corrigan), fast moving plot, gorgeous love interest, drugged up pop stars... Read more
Published on 21 Nov 1999 by Ian Howells
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