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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Lame Farce, 21 Sep 2004
I'm always on the lookout for crime stories with a twist, and I'm always keen on those set outside London (such as John Williams' Cardiff books or John Harvey's Nottingham series). Alas, this Manchester-set mobster farce proved to be far too heavy-handed and baroque to be enjoyable. The story kicks off when little-read horror novelist Billy Dye (the last name is just a taste of the mostly lame humor) is granted an interview with gangster #1 Malcom Priest (again, har har on the name) for a glossy lad mag. Dye somewhat rashly (or perhaps as part of a subconscious death wish), writes the truth about the nasty gangster in his profile. Thankfully, his editor rewrites it into a fawning puff piece, temporarily keeping Billy alive (although it's no great save, since the only four people Billy seems to know are his hapless agent, his ineffectual publisher, an estranged girlfriend, and his drug connection). This leads to Priest asking Dye to ghostwrite his autobiography, and thus Billy gains access to the inner sanctum. It's all very serviceable, but no one's going to dislocate a jaw laughing at the stuff. After all this setup, the story is unleashed when Priest decides Dye is annoying and orders him killed. This seems to come out of nowhere, and it's a little strange that there's no particular inciting event that leads to this. Alas, the story relies on a huge contrivance to keep the annoying Dye aliveóit just so happens that the Priest's executioner extraordinaire ("Rawhead") was Dye's best chum from childhood. From there, things just keep getting worse. Rawhead puts Dye into a safe house and starts unleashing revenge on his behalf, leading to some fairly nasty scenes of carnage. And for the rest of the book, it's hard to know who does more stupid stuff: Dye or the gangsters. Granted, it's all a farce, but Dye is truly unlikable, and as it becomes clearer that Rawhead is a psychopath, it's hard to root for him as well. As the book progresses, the only question is how fast all these people are going to die (not fast enough). It should be noted that there's a whole gothic texture the book. Dye and Rawhead bonded as youths over classic gothic lit, and these old ghost tales crop up throughout the second half of the story. It all ends up feeling rather gimmicky, and basically I couldn't read this book fast enough to be done with it. Plenty of people apparently like it though, cause there's a sequel out called "I Love My Smith and Wesson."
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by David Bowker
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