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Cocaine Nights (Paperback)

by J.G. Ballard (Author) "CROSSING FRONTIERS is my profession ..." (more)
3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Flamingo; New Ed edition (1 Sep 1997)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0006550649
  • ISBN-13: 978-0006550648
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 20,276 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #10 in  Books > Fiction > Cult Authors > Ballard, J.G.

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Product Description

Synopsis
This is the remarkable bestseller from one of the giants of modern British literature - at once an engrossing mystery and an unnerving vision of a society coming to terms with a life of unlimited leisure. When Charles Prentice arrives in Spain to investigate his brother's involvement in the death of five people in a fire in the upmarket coastal resort of Estrella de Mar, he gradually discovers that beneath the civilised, cultured surface of this exclusive enclave for Britain's retired rich there flourishes a secret world of crime, drugs and illicit sex! What starts as an engrossing mystery develops into a mesmerising novel of ideas - a dazzling work of the imagination from one of Britain's most original and controversial novelists - author of "Empire of the Sun" and "Crash".
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CROSSING FRONTIERS is my profession. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews

35 Reviews
5 star:
 (11)
4 star:
 (11)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (6)
1 star:
 (6)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.4 out of 5 stars (35 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Cocaine Nights is snort to be sniffed at., 26 May 2003
By Mr. Hugh Harkin "hugh_harkin" (Scotland) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
What people are failing to see about Ballard is that his novels remind or inform us that below the surface there can often be some heavy stuff shifting about and 'Cocaine Nights' explores this fully. Set in what seems at first to be a bland Spanish ex-pat resort, we follow Charles Prentice who arrives to clear his brother of a murder he quite clearly did not commit, yet has admitted to.
At first Prentice is disgusted by the amoral characters he comes across, who seem to be middle class facists with no sense of right or wrong, but gradually they suck him into their world and he becomes a clone of his brother.
The whole of the end of the 20th century is here: sex, guns, drugs, crime and neck braces. This is a cable TV, mobile phone, Rolex watch dream gone horribly wrong, which puts forward the original idea that we are becoming obsessed with leisure and sun loungers and are becomimg lethargic if not catatonic. Lethargic to such a degree that crime as a means of excitement is justified if it wakes people up and gets them talking to each other. It's beautiful, scary stuff.
I would also recommend 'High Rise' by the same author and his examination of a possible future within fortified leisure cities, 'Supe-Cannes'.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Unmissable vivisection of the expatriate dream, 27 April 1999
By A Customer
Ballard is a vivisector of contemporary culture, and he has rarely been so close to the mark than here. Cocaine Nights shows how the world Ballard has always written about - drained swimming pools; languid, psychotic socialites; abandoned hotels - has finally come true on the coast of Spain, where bored expats, desperate for sensation, turn to sex, drugs and finally murder to alleviate the boredom of the life they always dreamed of. Blending cutting social analysis with a well-plotted thriller and an unforgettable central character (a violent, promiscuous, coke-snorting tennis coach) Cocaine Nights is a book to read on holiday - and to make you long for home.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not quite at his best..., 19 Jan 2005
By jim jarvis (London, England) - See all my reviews
Crime inspires the bloated middle-class haven of Estrella de Mar, waking its inhabitants from a permanent state of poolside lethargy. The plot is detective genre and maybe a little formulaic but the twists and turns keep things moving towards an explosive climax.

The moody, stripped down prose and recurring Ballardian motifs will please his fans. Maybe the characters aren't quite his best, but of course, this is Ballard, and the agency of individuals is subsumed in the weirdness of this amoral playground.

Haunting, disturbed, prophetic.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars cocaine nights
i enjoyed this book. the plot was quite implausible, but non the less i still found it a good read.
the ultimate goal for a lot of people is to have un limited leisure. Read more
Published 28 days ago by Mr. M. Bounds

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing....
I have had this book for AGES but only finally felt inclined to read it a few weeks ago. This is also my first foray into Ballard. Read more
Published 3 months ago by A Reader

4.0 out of 5 stars Pacy but rather implausible
Quite a tense thriller, though I thought it was obvious from early on that the solution to the whodunnit element was some kind of collective guilt. Read more
Published 10 months ago by John Hopper

2.0 out of 5 stars Another tired dystopia
What is it with ageing male writers and 'disturbing' dystopian visions of the fate of humanity? Along with McCarthy's "The Road" or Houellebecq's "Atomised", Ballard spends the... Read more
Published 10 months ago by EmmaH

3.0 out of 5 stars Late Ballard, a bit tired
This was another book I read upon finishing my English Literature degree, eight years ago, for light relief. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Greshon

2.0 out of 5 stars Inaccessably Snobby
You're on holiday. You've just finished reading 'Invisible Monsters' for the fifth time, and decide you might try something from an author with a completely different... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Matthew Arnold

4.0 out of 5 stars Violence as recreation...
This is an interesting novel that melds one of Ballard's warning fables of the near-future with a whodunnit mystery, as a man tries to find out why his brother is pleading guilty... Read more
Published on 3 Jul 2007 by dogbarkssome

4.0 out of 5 stars Flags a little towards the end...
I finished this book today - this is my first J.G.Ballard novel. He is clearly a brilliant writer - his use of language and descriptions are first class. Read more
Published on 2 Jul 2007 by Essex Mark

2.0 out of 5 stars Cocaine Nights JG Ballard
This is far from the disturbed, prophetic brilliance of Crash. It is based on a Durkheimian notion of crime as a binding agent for communities which has been awkwardly explored... Read more
Published on 8 Nov 2004 by alec_jr

5.0 out of 5 stars What Lies Beneath
A crime novel in all manner of unexpected ways, 'Cocaine Nights' begins with an apparent miscarriage of justice. Read more
Published on 10 Oct 2003 by scribeoflight

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