- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd; First Edition edition (25 Jan 1996)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 022404320X
- ISBN-13: 978-0224043205
- Product Dimensions: 22.4 x 14.2 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,021,601 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
A White Merc With Fins
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Take four ne'er-do-wells, add some plastic guns, the IRA and a white Merc with fins and you have a plan - to walk into Michael Winner's private bank and walk out with half a million pounds.
About the Author
James Hawes was born in 1960 and raised in Gloucestershire, Edinburgh and Shropshire, and educated at three comprehensive schools and Hertford College, Oxford. From 1983, he was variously a burden of the State, a cardless actor/playwright, an EFL teacher in Spain, a busker, a computer salesman and an archaeologist before entering University College London in 1987 for his PhD on Nietzsche and Kafka. He lectured in German at Maynooth, Ireland, from 1989-91 and is now on sabbatical from University College Swansea. He is married with one son.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I'm getting rid of this book so I thought I'd write it a farewell review before it leaves. It's James Hawes' 1996 debut novel, a story about a heist, set in London. I read it 8 years ago and it provided very little amusement and not many enduring memories. I can't believe it seems to have received so much positive praise. I thought it was highly derivative (it published 2 years after Pulp Fiction and 5 years after Reservoir Dogs and it tries to bring their action and mood to a grittier, grimmer London) and full of cliched, two-dimensional characters. I'd say there's also something of Hornby in there as well but, again, this is of a lower order.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A fast paced romp through the wasteland of postgraduate disenchantment in modern Britain. This is an addictive read which never fails to entertain. A thriller and love story with plenty of hardnosed attitude and the seedy realism of the big city.It's stuffed full of delightfully bizarre characters all hustling the narrative towards the finale, the heist. Ironically an attempt to violently remove money from Michael Winner's bank. We should be so lucky.Those of us slowly metamorphosing into the bald man in the bedsit had better watch out. There are plenty of seditious thoughts seeping out here to unsettle us all.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a fantastic read. Hawes writes very poignantly about what it's like to feel lost in your late twenties. If you're one of those people who, like me, still have no clue what you want to do with your life (even though everyone thinks you should), then many passages of the book will resonate deeply. I honestly don't see how anyone could find the book boring...the only explanation I have is that the plot may seem a bit familiar to those now aquainted with the Lock Stock genre of movies, but Hawes wrote the book before all of that. I think it's definitely a worthwhile read.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A good first novel I read as his second book...
I read this after I had read "Rancid Aluminium" which I believe to be the second novel from James Hawes. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Akku
Probably the dullest book ever
This has to be the all time dullest book ever written - giving it 1 star out of five is being nice
Published on 9 May 2007 by Darren Brockway
How does this guy get into print?
I found the humour non-existent. The storyline was laboured and the characters seemed so hackneyed.
Another poor book from a very unfunny writer.
Published on 21 Feb 2006 by D. Hill
Fast, Funny And Furiously Readable!
It beats me why they made Hawes's subsequent novel, the appalling 'Rancid Aluminium', into a movie when 'A White Merc With Fins' could have been made in to a new Italian Job for... Read more
Published on 27 July 2004 by A. Reynolds
Compulsive and very entertaining
Absolutely first rate book. Really exciting and thought provoking. The characters are excellent and the reviewer who was ranting about Martin Amis and Douglas coupland it talking... Read more
Published on 1 Nov 2002 by Elizabeth Curnow
Dont even go there!
I waited in anticipation to find this book and what a letdown. A story so mundane that most of the time my mind wandered to doing the housework or whats on TV. Read more
Published on 4 Aug 2000
A Real Curate's Egg
I picked up 'A White Merc...' with real expectation. Two or three friends had recommended it to me and given the novel glowing references. What a let down! Read more
Published on 19 Feb 2000
Superb!
Loved this! A king among the huge selection of pseudo-trendy London society novels which you only read because you see them advertised on the tube and are too lazy to spend more... Read more
Published on 2 Dec 1999 by alasdairt@hotmail.com
Fantastic, cocky, confident.
Hawes' style is so self-assured that you *have* to love it. The main character is so real it's you: confident, insecure, a loser who gets the girl in the first few pages. Read more
Published on 14 Jun 1999
Fiercely funny crime caper with real bite
This is one of the most incredible contemporary novels I've read in a long time. Hawes has a wonderful style, easy to read and entertaining, with some fiercely funny observations... Read more
Published on 7 Jun 1999
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