Jim Thompson, James Ellroy—and Arnott in his first novel—have all done it better.
The London criminal underground that was such an ebullient presence in Arnott’s terrific debut, The Long Firm (1999), is likewise the setting and subject of this ambitious but disappointing successor.
There are three stories, all of which eventually intersect (though not without a couple of wrenching surprises) at the violent conclusion. Ex-army tough Billy Porter can’t make it as a civilian, and when (in 1966) he and a cohort stockpile guns and cruise about looking for a likely heist, three police officers who stop their vehicle are gunned down. When Billy escapes, goes into hiding, and becomes a kind of Robin Hood beloved by an authority-hating “Peace Convoy,” his story attracts the continuing attention of policeman Frank Taylor (whose best friend was one of Billy’s victims) and gay journalist Tony Meehan, who’s seeking a subject that will inspire him to become the next Truman Capote (i.e., of In Cold Blood). It sounds promising, but Arnott sacrifices much of the tension inherent in a lengthy manhunt by dwelling on Taylor’s romantic relationship with the goodhearted whore he eventually marries and Meehan’s own murderous dealings with anonymous male prostitutes (after offing his first, Tony assures himself “that I had killed my hateful desire, cleansed myself of it”). There ought to be more of a kick from a tale that invents such potentially lively characters as Maltese “Ponce” Attilio Spitori, a moralizing Police DI who urges Taylor to join him as a freemason, a Greek Cypriot arms supplier, and a “decadent Arab” pornographer. A few characters from The Long Hunt also show up (including mobster Harry Starks and criminous MP “Teddy” Thursby), but they aren’t given enough to do, and even Arnott’s slangy, high-energy prose (which is the best feature here) too frequently settles for reductive clichés (e.g., “I thought about how much she must hate me. It made me feel empty”).
Jim Thompson, James Ellroy—and Arnott in his first novel—have all done it better.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-56947-271-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Soho
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2001
A treat for fans of The Evil Dead or Zombieland, complete with affordable solutions for better living.
A hardy band of big-box retail employees must dig down for their personal courage when ghosts begin stalking them through home furnishings.
You have to give it up for the wave of paranormal novels that have plagued the last decade in literature; at least they’ve made writers up their games when it comes to finding new settings in which to plot their scary moments. That’s the case with this clever little horror story from longtime pop-culture journalist Hendrix (Satan Loves You, 2012, etc.). Set inside a disturbingly familiar Scandinavian furniture superstore in Cleveland called Orsk, the book starts as a Palahniuk-tinged satire about the things we own—the novel is even wrapped in the form of a retail catalog complete with product illustrations. Our main protagonist is Amy, an aimless 24-year-old retail clerk. She and an elderly co-worker, Ruth Anne, are recruited by their anal-retentive boss, Basil (a closet geek), to investigate a series of strange breakages by walking the showroom floor overnight. They quickly uncover two other co-workers, Matt and Trinity, who have stayed in the store to film a reality show called Ghost Bomb in hopes of catching a spirit on tape. It’s cute and quite funny in a Scooby Doo kind of way until they run across Carl, a homeless squatter who's just trying to catch a break. Following an impromptu séance, Carl is possessed by an evil spirit and cuts his own throat. It turns out the Orsk store was built on the remains of a brutal prison called the Cuyahoga Panopticon, and its former warden, Josiah Worth, has returned from the dead to start up operations again. It sounds like an absurd setting for a haunted-house novel, but Hendrix makes it work to the story’s advantage, turning the psychological manipulations and scripted experiences that are inherent to the retail experience into a sinister fight for survival.
Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-59474-526-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Kin “[find] each other’s lives inscrutable” in this rich, sharp story about the way identity is formed.
Inseparable identical twin sisters ditch home together, and then one decides to vanish.
The talented Bennett fuels her fiction with secrets—first in her lauded debut, The Mothers (2016), and now in the assured and magnetic story of the Vignes sisters, light-skinned women parked on opposite sides of the color line. Desiree, the “fidgety twin,” and Stella, “a smart, careful girl,” make their break from stultifying rural Mallard, Louisiana, becoming 16-year-old runaways in 1954 New Orleans. The novel opens 14 years later as Desiree, fleeing a violent marriage in D.C., returns home with a different relative: her 8-year-old daughter, Jude. The gossips are agog: “In Mallard, nobody married dark....Marrying a dark man and dragging his blueblack child all over town was one step too far.” Desiree's decision seals Jude’s misery in this “colorstruck” place and propels a new generation of flight: Jude escapes on a track scholarship to UCLA. Tending bar as a side job in Beverly Hills, she catches a glimpse of her mother’s doppelgänger. Stella, ensconced in White society, is shedding her fur coat. Jude, so Black that strangers routinely stare, is unrecognizable to her aunt. All this is expertly paced, unfurling before the book is half finished; a reader can guess what is coming. Bennett is deeply engaged in the unknowability of other people and the scourge of colorism. The scene in which Stella adopts her White persona is a tour de force of doubling and confusion. It calls up Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the book's 50-year-old antecedent. Bennett's novel plays with its characters' nagging feelings of being incomplete—for the twins without each other; for Jude’s boyfriend, Reese, who is trans and seeks surgery; for their friend Barry, who performs in drag as Bianca. Bennett keeps all these plot threads thrumming and her social commentary crisp. In the second half, Jude spars with her cousin Kennedy, Stella's daughter, a spoiled actress.
Kin “[find] each other’s lives inscrutable” in this rich, sharp story about the way identity is formed.Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-53629-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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