Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
review by Fast Bikes magazine, 4 Jul 2008
We don't do many book reviews at Fast Bikes, but then there aren't that many books that have anything to do with motorbikes that are any good, remotely funny, or have a clue what they're talking about. This one is different.
The author, Hag Hughes, will be familiar to a few exceptionally hardcore readers who recall his appearances in Fast Bikes through the ages. Hag is an (in)famous special builder and endurance racer. He's worked as a test rider, journalist, and race product designer. So, he knows bikes when he writes about them. And wind-ups.
Prank! is set behind the scenes of the World Endurance championship, in the chaotic, drunken, out of control life of factory team chief mechanic Paul `Hazy' Hayes. There's lots of harmless fun, and then a lot of rather harmful fun too. The wholly unpredictable plot follows Hazy as it all starts to go wrong and his life plunges into a desperate spiral of chaos.
The characters are well developed, consistent, and draw real emotional responses. Impressively, Hag doesn't rely too much on bike racing, and doesn't need to, when he could easily have used his knowledge there to prop up the rest of the book and appeal to die-hard bikers at the expense of everyone else. Prank! stands up strongly on its own, so your interest in bikes is a bonus rather than a necessity.
I really got into it, and got through it very quickly because I didn't want to put it down. It's also a damn sight better than Charley Boringman's `Race to Dakar' that I slogged through last summer.
Prank! gets a big thumbs up from me.
Wilko
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Prank!, 6 Jun 2008
Paul (Hazy) Hayes loves a bit of innocent fun, in fact he spends most of his Alcohol fuelled life plotting the next wind up, the next joke and searching for his next victim. He is cruel.
But what if it all goes wrong, and someone gets killed?
Would YOU help him dispose of the body?
Set amongst the colourful and exciting of backdrop of a World Championship motosport team, where success and inspired invention meets abruptly with disaster and desparation. His tale then threads it's way through the curious and usually closed doors of the British film industry in his quest for the ultimate revenge. Hazy then battles with friends, foes, lovers and ultimately his own conscience, as he attempts to hold together both his life and his sanity under the crumbling reality of divorce and destitution.
Oh, and Robert DeNiro's corpse in the boot of his car!
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