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alittlelifemess's review against another edition
4.0
It's funny and unlike anything I've read. It took time to get used to the language and the writing style but it was enjoyable throughout.
whatmeworry's review against another edition
3.0
Not without it's faults but still an entertaining, gritty and gripping crime tale.
rosseroo's review
4.0
I tend to like British crime novels, and since I had a great few days in Manchester many years ago, I figured I'd check out this first in a Manchester-set series featuring ex-con Cal Innes. After taking the fall for a botched robbery led by the psycho son of a local crimelord, Cal did about half of a five-year stretch. Since his release, he's been eking out a living as a kind of informal detective, doing odds and ends of work for all kinds of people while trying to keep his prodigious drinking somewhat under control, and himself out of jail.
When the crimelord asks him to track down a blackjack dealer who's made off with 10k of his house money, it's less a request than an order, and one Cal can't really refuse. Unfortunately for Cal, he's not the most subtle detective, and soon enough he's raised enough hackles to be in a fight or three. Meanwhile, the crimelord's son is upset that he hasn't been given the task of tracking the dealer down, and is intent on scaring Cal off the job. The story unfolds in brief chapters alternating between Cal's voice and that of the psycho son, as the story takes them up to Newcastle in pursuit of the dodgy dealer. (Both voices are laden with regional and drug slang, so those who have problems deciphering these be forewarned.)
Needless to say, not everything is as it seems, but Cal has to learn that the hard way. And the hard way was never so hard as it is in this book, as Cal gets battered, bloodied and beaten to pulp (and to be fair, doles out some of same in kind). The book is a very physical one, not only in the sense of the batterings bodies take, but also in the way that the reader is made acutely aware of everything the main characters ingest, from pills, to booze, to smokes, to greasy cafe food. There's something about it that makes one very aware of the human body.
The plot itself is pretty straight-forward, but the pacing is such that you're sucked along the simple ride pretty quickly. (There are minor subplots involving a Manchester cop hassling Cal, and a potential romantic interest in Newcastle.) The ending is rather interesting, not a typical crime story ending, but more in keeping with some of the bleak films of the early 1970s. That rescues it from feeling otherwise a little thin, and the whole thing feels like a bit of a warmup for more involved future stories about Cal (which appear in the book's sequels, Sucker Punch and No More Heroes.)
When the crimelord asks him to track down a blackjack dealer who's made off with 10k of his house money, it's less a request than an order, and one Cal can't really refuse. Unfortunately for Cal, he's not the most subtle detective, and soon enough he's raised enough hackles to be in a fight or three. Meanwhile, the crimelord's son is upset that he hasn't been given the task of tracking the dealer down, and is intent on scaring Cal off the job. The story unfolds in brief chapters alternating between Cal's voice and that of the psycho son, as the story takes them up to Newcastle in pursuit of the dodgy dealer. (Both voices are laden with regional and drug slang, so those who have problems deciphering these be forewarned.)
Needless to say, not everything is as it seems, but Cal has to learn that the hard way. And the hard way was never so hard as it is in this book, as Cal gets battered, bloodied and beaten to pulp (and to be fair, doles out some of same in kind). The book is a very physical one, not only in the sense of the batterings bodies take, but also in the way that the reader is made acutely aware of everything the main characters ingest, from pills, to booze, to smokes, to greasy cafe food. There's something about it that makes one very aware of the human body.
The plot itself is pretty straight-forward, but the pacing is such that you're sucked along the simple ride pretty quickly. (There are minor subplots involving a Manchester cop hassling Cal, and a potential romantic interest in Newcastle.) The ending is rather interesting, not a typical crime story ending, but more in keeping with some of the bleak films of the early 1970s. That rescues it from feeling otherwise a little thin, and the whole thing feels like a bit of a warmup for more involved future stories about Cal (which appear in the book's sequels, Sucker Punch and No More Heroes.)
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