Underdogs
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Rob Ryan's debut novel Underdogs, an ambitious and convoluted thriller, sports a jacket blurb describing it as a cross between John Carpenter's film Assault on Precinct 13 and Alice in Wonderland. Athough one might disagree with the points of reference there is something wildly hybrid about this book. The novels of Charles Dickens with their huge casts drawn together in an inexorable web of connections would serve as a good analogue for Ryan's plotting style. Brief chapters flitting from character to character as well as back in time to the Vietnam war are initially fragmenting and disorienting, but the pull of the narrative interweaves them all tightly and in unexpected ways. Dickens' sense of the underbelly of urban life is also manifest and actualised here--the book takes place in Seattle, known to most as the home of TV's Frasier, the band Nirvana, and good coffee. In the city a real yet surreal underworld is revealed: a labyrinth of tunnels and chambers created after the city was ravaged by fire in the 1890s and had to be rebuilt one layer higher than before.
More contemporary reference points would be books on Vietnam, gun manuals, and police procedurals, and Ryan's heterogeneous approach to the genre makes for an original and cleverly written piece of fiction (if a little heavy on police and army acronyms). One of the central characters, Lewis, served as a "tunnel-rat" in Vietnam (the "underdogs" of the title) flushing out Vietcong lying in ambush in networks of underground passages. Like Seattle itself Lewis has a deep, dark and unfathomed aspect--both are bound to and marked by the past. Being sent into the city's underworld in pursuit of a fleeing gunman and his eight-year-old girl hostage Lewis is made to confront a traumatic wartime experience: a denouement which like in all good detective fiction is subtly signalled throughout but is nevertheless resolutely surprising. Ryan's book comes to life in the underground passages with their freakish denizens and fetid environs and ultimately provokes a real frisson of strangeness and terror. Watching Frasier will never be the same again. --Burhan Turfail --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
GQ
‘Brilliantly realised'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I went out and bought Underdogs by Rob Ryan after reading the review in the Independent by Mark Timlin (he of the Nick Sharman books, which were televised with Clive Owen). Timlin predicted that this would be the best first crime novel of the year - a big claim at the best of times but especially when it's only March. But as soon as I started it I knew what he meant. It's got pace, humour, exotic characters and brilliant cinematic descriptions of both Seattle and Vietnam (Ryan is a top Fleet Street travel writer it turns out). The story is basically Alice in Wonderland for our times, so the Queen of Hearts becomes Annie Haart, a ruthless drugs baron, for example. The action is set in Seattle where there are a series of underground tunnels beneath the city and begins when a criminal holds up a 7-11 and takes Ali (Alice) captive when the job goes wrong. As they attempt their escape the floor collapses and they fall into a weird underworld below, inhabited by illegal dope growers, fake cops, mad real cops, transexuals and various other losers. The mixed-up loner who is sent in to save Ali is a Vietnam vet who has never recovered from his experiences with the tunnel rats there. There is a brilliant twist at the end which you just won't see coming. It's a fantastic page turner, worth every penny. Bruce, Mel and Arnie will all be fighting to star in the film version.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I was guided to this book by some of the reviews in the national press. I was fascinated by the thought of a UK writer taking on the Americans. And I wasn't dissappointed. It is one of the most surreal thrillers I have read in a long time. The plot is essentially quite straight forward; a hold up to finance a drug deal goes wrong and it turns into a hostage drama. Nothing new there except in the way Ryan makes it red like an enforcement officer's technical manual. But when it goes underground it takes off! Down there in an abandoned city beneath Seattle all kinds of freaks play out their gloomy lives. One minute it feels like that SWAT team in Alien 2 when they are down in the darkness surrounded by monsters and can't shoot for fear of rupturing some nuke core, and a minute later it has an almost Tolkein feel to it. Ryan has kicked out all the corny US thriller cliches and delivered something refreshingly bizarre and very pacey. I read it in two long blasts.
Format:Paperback
When I stumbled on Rob Ryan's "Underdogs" I wasn't sure whether I would enjoy the book. I'm not much into "Let's face the trauma of Vietnam" dramas. I shouldn't have worried. The way Rob Ryan interweaves the different story lines of Vietnam "tunnel rat" vets, small time gangsters, Seattle "Under"street bums and praramilitary swat teams (just to mention a few) gets more compelling by every turn of a page. At the same time leading as unescapable to a tradgedy as a Kafka novel the book is as hilariously funny as Tom Sharpe in it's consequent description of one wrong step causing the next - even bigger - desaster. The way he turns loosers into heroes and drops heros literally in deep shit is the funniest I've read in a long, long time. It's definetly my best read of this year.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
exciting and original
this is a fast paced story which builds up tension as it races along. ejoyable on a number of levels - ho ho. Read more
Published on 24 Jan 2000
Rave reviews for excellent book
'Underdogs shows Ryan...utilising a fascinating setting with real aplomb and delivering something of a treat' The Times
"Brilliantly realised" GQ Magazine
"A... Read more
Published on 18 Jan 2000
Great fun, an intriguing mix of allegory and modern thriller
The book justifies the favourable mainstream reviews with its combination of street-wise characters, misfits and accidental participants in a Lewis Carroll inspired trip round the... Read more
Published on 16 Jan 2000
Weirdand exciting subterranean thriller
Underdogs is set in a long night in Seattle when a little girl is kidnapped by a rubbish hold-up guy. Read more
Published on 15 Jan 2000
Intricate, compelling thriller
This is the most satisfyingly complex crime novel I've read in ages. Whilst the bulk of the action takes place in Seattle, where - and this is true, apparently - a whole... Read more
Published on 14 Jan 2000
the most original and exciting thriller I've read for ages.
It's got a great setting in Seattle and the stuff about the underground tunnels beneath the city is fascinating. Read more
Published on 14 Jan 2000
A really entertaining page turner
I wrote the original review of this book (still on Amazon on the entry below this if anyone wants to read it) and stand by every word of it. Read more
Published on 14 Jan 2000
Muddled and ultimately disappointing
I bought this novel on the stength of the press reviews printed on the cover, but was left wondering if the reviewers had read a different book! Read more
Published on 11 Jan 2000
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