Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
risible rubbish, 11 Jul 2007
The Do-Not Press Should-Not have wasted ink & paper, or maybe that's the only kind of 'novel' they can get to publish?
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1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Realism at its best, 18 April 2006
Dear Sirs,
I would like to offer my congratulations to this author, Jerry Raine, who has not only captured the essence of real crime on the streets of gritty England but who has done it with humour and imagination: Something which certain reviewers, namely one Mr Tom Williams, if that is in fact his real name, have failed to appreciate.
After further research it seems the only literature capable of satisfying the ignorant palate of Tom Williams "reviewer", is an offensive pulp fiction title "Porno" obviously dreamt up by someone with such a lack of wit they should be whipped to an inch of their death rather than be gainfully employed by the unfortunate publisher.
For those of us who are aware of the real world, where mass media has in fact enabled Englishmen to surpass terms such as "alright chum" and "goodo old chap" and adapt to the slang of the 20th century despite their insatiable appetite for tea and biscuits and where country and western music, like it or not, is in fact more popular than punk, funk, cyberpunk, fluropunk, techno, house, grandma's house and teahouse; we are in fact aware and appreciative that the work of Jerry Raine in Small Time is a work of realism at the grassroots level.
Yours in admiration for Smalltime,
Ingnatius Z.Reilly
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1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Dull, plodding crime novel. Who dunnit? More like Who cares!, 10 Mar 2004
The cover of this novel instantly grabbed me. A grainy black and white picture of an ashtray with a joint in it, a glass of Whisky and open wrap containing some kind of white powdered narcotic. 'Chris is drawn into the dangerous and seedy underworld of Suburban London', promised the blurb. Why there was a picture of drink and drugs on the cover and where this 'seedy underworld' appeared in the book are both still a complete mystery to me. Chris, a down on his luck bloke living in a local YMCA and working at a local off licence is mugged one night as he takes the day's takings to the bank. The rest of the book is the rather cheerless and morose tale of how he finds his attacker and his accomplice, and how he gets embroiled in their dodgy ways. It ends predictably and offers no twist or suprises. Meanwhile there is a dreary and rather pointless love triangle sub-plot, where the sex scenes are cut short like some television film before the watershed. The book completely fails to deliver. This is supposed to be the suburban south London underworld in 1992 yet there is none of the colourful, cocky language and biting wit you would expect. The characters are cardboard and strangely out of place and perhaps time. A man of the world in his early thirties in south London simply does not listen to Country and Western! This is supposed to be the suburban London underworld, post acid house, 1992, the height of the UK rave scene. And what is this fairly hip, good looking young man listening into? Country and Western! The language is monotone, dull and humourless and it seems to occasionally break into out-of-place North Americanism's such as 'you bet' and 'sure thing'. This is suburban London in 1992, 'safe' or 'sorted' I'll happily accept but 'sure thing', it just doesn't convince. I gave the book two stars simply because I didn't give up on it, although I was tempted more than once. With so many good books out there I couldn't honestly recommend this to anyone
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