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Cocaine Nights (Paperback)

by J.G. Ballard (Author) "CROSSING FRONTIERS is my profession ..." (more)
3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Flamingo; New edition 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: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 25,755 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

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

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Product Description

Review

'The arrival of a new Ballard novel has become a literary event. He is one of the few genuine surrealists this country has produced, the possessor of a terrifying and exhilarating imagination -- and a national treasure.' Guardian 'Britain's number one living novelist. This adds a glinting new facet to his achievement -- Ballard, detective-novelist extraordinary.' Sunday Times 'One of the few world-class British writers alive today.' Literary Review 'As thrillingly wired as ever! dazzlingly original.' Independent 'Utterly compulsive.' Sunday Telegraph


Product Description

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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Cocaine Nights
72% buy the item featured on this page:
Cocaine Nights 3.5 out of 5 stars (38)
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Customer Reviews

38 Reviews
5 star:
 (13)
4 star:
 (11)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (6)
1 star:
 (6)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.5 out of 5 stars (38 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..., 18 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

5.0 out of 5 stars I never forgot this one
I read this book about 5 years ago and although i only vaguely remember the story (apart from the obvious), I can say i never forgot this book or the thoughts it provoked. Read more
Published 1 month ago by C. Butt

5.0 out of 5 stars As one tends to expect from J.G. Ballard another brilliantly written novel.
Set in a Spanish ex-pat community this a tense thriller written with sarcastic wit that explores to quote from the text , `a social economy based on drug-dealing, theft,... Read more
Published 1 month ago by LindyLouMac

3.0 out of 5 stars `But to die in bed with his employer's wife showed an excessive sense of duty'
Yes, there is plenty of humour in J G Ballard's caustic dig at British ex-pat life on the Costa Del Sol but despite the claims of `dazzling originality' and `exhilarating... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Trevor Coote

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 5 months 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 7 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 14 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 14 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 17 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 on 25 Sep 2007 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

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