What Da Cover Says: The Lion Communique are thirteen darkly wound stories that examine the struggle between good and evil from multiple perspectives. Jim Morrison in the wilderness of Shamans and psychedelics, capturing the soul of General William Tecumseh Sherman, mysterious forces at play in the trenches of WWI, southern gothic/noir, families at war, and the ghosts of our pasts that we carry with us, and the hope of redemption.
What I Says: The Lion Communique is a book filled with demonic/ghost stories…these ghosts and demons are not what you would be expecting, this is all about those that you carry around with you. Cherry allows us to witness the inner struggles of a wide range of characters, from a General tasked with removing the American Indian threat to Jim Morrison on a spiritual quest, a serial rapist and a fisherman filled with guilt, there are a huge range of characters to explore.
Favourite has to be the fisherman’s story, Cherry’s exquisite writing drew me in right away, so easy to picture the loneliness out on the ocean as a weird light is spotted on the horizon, what follows next was so surreal, a short story that could easily become a movie. There were a few links between some of the stories, a couple were based on the frontline during The Great War with one character linking them together, I was left feeling there was more that could be done here, it would have been interesting to see how this one person manipulated events in more short stories.
Finally, even though I said the fisherman’s story was my favourite I had another favourite, Arrival For Duty was a lot of fun, the most deserving of hauntings in the book. The story follows a “fictional” President of America dealing with an important decision due to a rather corrupt past…I have zero idea who this could be based on…insert thinking emoji here. The way the ghosts deal with the President was fantastic, had me grinning away.
I had read a few little bits here and there from Cherry over the years and this was the first time I’ve sat down and given his work a serious read and it doesn’t disappoint, the stories are fun, creepy and after only a few paragraphs he manages to draw the reader in again and again.
What Da Cover Says: Some victims aren’t victims for long.
Some victims lie in wait.
Some victims bite back.
Dentata takes over where Jane. left off, continuing the transgressive fiction tradition that introduced readers to The Circle, a rough and tumble group of women who live life on the edge—revelling in mental illness, both real and self-induced, and partying until the sun comes up. Dentata follows Elisabeth, the only member of the group raised in suburbia, as trauma transforms her from the innocent mother hen to the most dangerous of them all.
What I Says: I really enjoyed Jane., it brought together a group of empowered women, tough, violent and not standing for any nonsense, so I was looking forward the second book to see how they were doing and how much partying they were getting up to. Even though I knew the basis for this story I was still shocked, how one moment brings back a life of trauma to the surface, sparking a spiral of vengeful madness that has no chance of being stopped. The revenge seems to take on a life of it’s own, daring Beth to go further and further, becoming more destructive, even to those she holds dear, until the conclusion almost explodes off the page.
I expected this to be a book on revenge but it goes way beyond that, this is all about the PTSD that has built up over time, the shame of the thoughts going around in your head, being surrounded by friends and still alone and losing all semblance of self. The writing is impeccable, it draws you in so quickly, strong characters and hard hitting plot makes the pages just whiz by and before you know it you are done. The question I have now… is there a third book? How with Beth’s friends deal with the fallout from Dentata?
Hello to everybody, time for another interview, I’m getting pretty good at stalking these authors on the Internets and cornering them until they give in and take part in this “fun”, I’m turning into a right little Annie Wilkes. So please wave at the latest amazing writer I have found, his book Beastie has been the best that I have read so far in 2024…I give you Jack O’Donnell…..
Q1: Tell us a bit about yourself?
Half-man, half-fish, but with dodgy knees. I live in Clydebank. I’ve had trips abroad to places like London. But I’m a Bannkie. Lived here almost all of my life. Part of the second or third generation Scottish Irish and mad Celtic fan. I feel sorry for the next generation because we really fucked up the world for them. I don’t own much, but I’m prepared to share my bus pass.
Q2: What is Beastie about? Where did you get the idea from?
When people ask what you write about (they don’t ask, I made that bit up) I reply: Arseholes like us. I know all the characters in the novel. They live and breathe and live in Clydebank.
Beastie is about us.
Q3: The book contains a lot of violence; how difficult did you find it to write those scenes?
Pretty easy. We were brought up to fight and scrap with each other. Teachers belted even the smallest kids. It was taken as a given that the police would beat you up. Booze was an escape, but also fuel to the fire.
Q4: How has the book been received? Has it been tough to find the right readers?
Locally, by that I mean, in and around Clydebank, sales have been OK. It’s almost impossible to find readers outside my catchment area because there are so many other books all vying for readers’ attention. There are no wrong readers, well, apart from my sister, who gave the book one star because it was smutty. But she’s a tough critic. She battered me when I was younger. So I don’t argue with her now.
That was my very bestseller. Jeff Bezos and me are around the same age. He agreed to split the profits. He gets 99.999999999% and I get to say he used to follow me on Twitter.
I was also author of the first crowd-funded novel in Scotland, Lily Poole. Nobody much read that either, including me.
What was unusual about me winning Story of the Month here was this story, Windfall, didn’t win Story of the Week (another of my stories won that).
I’ve lots of stories nobody reads. I assume most unagented writers do. They just pile up like unwanted gnomes.
Waiting to be collected up into a short story collection I reckons.
Q6: Beastie was based in the 1970’s and due to my time travelling antics I know for a fact Gnomes were alive and well in those days…so why are they absent from the book?
Gnomes aren’t absent from this book. They are just underrepresented. When there is a fight in the local, gnomes get a right kicking and become gnomeless.
Q7: A lot of local dialect was used in Beastie, which is your favourite phrase that you used?
‘Drookit.’ I had to keep to below three references. It’s like Eskimos with snow. There’s always more.
Q8: If you could go into a book or movie as one of the characters which book would you choose and how would you influence the story?
Donald Trump: The Art of the Deal. We’re in Stephen King territory here. If you know that a narcissistic, psychopathic, rapist, draft-dodging, liar is going to take over the free world and burn it to a frazzle, what kind of deal do you strike?
Q9: Statement: Rangers is best! Counter argument?
Three Kings. Busby, Shankly, Stein. All ex-miners. Stein shunned by his former friends and colleagues. His crime? Not guilty of marrying a Catholic like Graham Sourness, who was questioned about his wife’s religion, but much worse, managing a football team that kept winning. Celtic didn’t discriminate between church or chapel or what school players went to. Kenny Dalglish, Dixie Deans, Danny McGrain. Protestants. Some of the best players ever to pull on a Celtic jersey.
Rangers are best at hating the other, excluding the other, while hand on heart saying they’ve changed their Ulster-Catholic-hating-colonial mentality that’s always up to it’s knees in Fenian blood. Surrender or you’ll die.
Both football teams aren’t very good. It doesn’t seem that long ago, Aberdeen beat Real Madrid in a final. Dundee United beat Barcelona, home and away and got to the European Cup semi-final. It’ll never happen again.
Q10: GNOME QUESTION!!!! If the apocalypse was about to happen how would you survive the Attack of the Gnomes? I’m putting together a handbook, you got a random bit of advice to add?
Find a phone box and phone me. You’ll need two pence for the phone.
Great advice cos nobody would think of having 2p on them at important events like this.
Q11: What plans you got for the future, you made a start on the next book? I would love to read a sequel to Beastie, it doesn’t feel like the story is over yet.
I have a stack of first drafts, including Angel’s Glasgow Kiss. I can promise you, it’s not a happy ending. I was also rewriting the Huts at Kilmacolm and Ugly Puggly. But then I started writing something else. It wasn’t very good. But it may get better. The problem isn’t writing. The problem is selling the story to someone that can sell it to the reader.
Practical task: I am doing a gnome gallery on my blog, can you create a piece of artwork based on Gnomes, can be any medium and you are welcome to name the piece.
My granny knitted this.
Many thanks for taking part in this, reckon I shall have to go check out Lily Poole now, I enjoyed Windfall. If you would like to stalk Jack…maybe you are a Rangers fan seeking a counter-counter-argument…you can find him on Twitter.Beastie comes highly recommended by me, check it out cos you’re missing out big time.
What Da Cover Says: Decimalization, dole queues and The Troubles in Northern Ireland brought home to a Clydebank tenement. Teenage Chaz Sweeney seizes the chance to get out and make a name for himself as a big man.
Angela, aged Her mum can’t protect her. Her only friends Pizza Face (Chaz’s brother) and Evan are like older brothers, but they can’t protect her either…Chaz is too big and they’re too small.
In fantasy and fairy tales they look for a way to escape the everyday horrors they face…To give them hope of a normal life.
Beastie lays bare the brutal reality of Poverty and Social and Economic deprivation of 1970s Scotland.
What I Says: Oh man! This is a gem of a book, so many times now I have been lucky enough to read a book that has yet to have been picked up by the rest of the world and I am left stunned that so many are missing out on something so great. I wouldn’t say Beastie was a “joy” to read, every other page my heart was being torn apart by the life of poor little Angela and her friends/guardian angels Pizza Face and Evan but I loved every page. The villains left me using some of the local dialect in rage each time they got away with something, so proper emotional story telling here. haha.
I wasn’t raised in Scotland but so many of the things the kids did in this book seemed to have been taken from my childhood, collecting bottles to get 10p for their return, finding a mucky mag and boasting about what we’d do, the game of kicking a ball against the curb (which we imaginatively called curb ball) and the mighty penny sweeties. As for the dialogue, short, sharp and fun, local dialect is heavily used which makes it all the more enjoyable and far easier to follow than expected.
Without giving much away this was one of the hardest books I’ve read, due to work I have had to do a lot of safeguarding training and this shows why, poor Angela tries to get help, she hints again and again at what she was going through but everybody just turns a blind eye, it was quite shocking to read about what things were like way back then. Whilst this is classed as fiction it feels very real.
The current runner for my book of 2024, don’t miss out, get a copy of this and experience a book like no other.
What Da Cover Says: Travel through drowned forests, vanished villages and sinking cities: the lost lands of our past, present – and future.
From Stone Age lands that slipped beneath the English Channel to the rapid inundation of New Orleans, Gareth E. Rees explores stories of flooded places from the past – and those disappearing before our eyes.
The places lost to the eternally shifting boundaries between water and land continue to have a powerful emotional resonance today. Their uncertain features emerge to haunt us, briefly, when the moon draws back the tide to reveal a spire or a tree stump. And, imbued with myths and warnings from the past, these underwater worlds can also teach us important lessons about the unavoidability of change, the ebb and flow of Earth’s natural cycles, and the folly of trying to control them.
Sunken Lands peels back the layers of silt, sea and mythology to reveal what our submerged past can tell us about our imminent future as rising sea levels transform our planet once more.
What I Says: In one of those weird coincidences each time I picked up this book it started raining, I’m writing this review as the rain turns horizontal outside and batters against my window, I can only hope by finishing this review I can save the planet. This book wasn’t quite what I was expecting, I thought Rees was going to be exploring sunken forests and towns but he takes us further into the folklore of the sunken place and presents to the reader how these events are playing out today. Rees takes a story from the past, explores what happened, what the tale is trying to teach us and how we are blatantly ignoring these warnings. He also tries to locate possible locations for these vanished places.
There is a lot of emotion behind his writing, I think when Rees set out on this journey he didn’t expect us to be in such a bad way, driving around New Orleans hit home how desperate the situation is. I have gained a lot of knowledge from what he shares in these pages, I knew that we have a habit of building houses on flood planes, doing the bare minimum to protect people and houses from rising seas and extreme weather, the propaganda put out by energy companies to show they care, but I didn’t realise just the extent of our stupidity, millions of houses on flood planes, flood barriers made out of sand and shells? Who authorises this craziness? My favourite thing about this book was learning about how the UK was shaped, how we became an island and then the creation of the Scilly isles, fascinating stuff I should have learnt at school.
The book is well written, I like how each chapter starts with a story, then Rees elaborates on that and shares many theories. I liked his sense of humour, especially on his trip to Italy and sharing his paranoia with us. I enjoyed reading his descriptions of what he saw. I think the book is missing something though, it needs diagrams/maps, he talks about events and gives figures about how much land is affected and it was hard to visualise this, some diagrams would help hammer home the points he was trying to make.
This was an interesting read and although the future doesn’t look good I think this is something everybody needs to read just to get an understanding of where this planet is heading.
What Da Cover Says: ‘Leaving England June, to explore rivers Central Brazil, if possible ascertain fate Colonel Fawcett; abundance game, big and exceptional fishing; room for two more guns’ – read the advertisement in the Agony column of The Times.
Colonel Fawcett and his son Jack had embarked on a journey in the summer of 1925 in search of a Lost World, and were never seen again. This was altogether too much of a temptation for a young man with energy and in search for adventure. It is a journey which begins in a reckless spirit of can-do frivolity, but will slowly darken into something very personal and deeply testing, ‘for which Rider Haggard might have written the plot and Conrad designed the scenery’.
What I Says: What a fascinating adventure this was, very much in the style of an adventure I would take on, little planning, relying on the wrong people, going off script big time and winging it every step of the way. As you can tell this isn’t your classic English adventure, Fleming admits at the beginning that we are running out of new places on this planet to be the first person to step there, so after spotting an advert looking for persons to go and explore one of the last unknown areas, the Amazon Rainforest, he applies and gets himself selected.
The book is split into 3 parts, each one more exciting than the last, as the adventure picks up pace so does the writing. We start off with the planning, the start of the journey and then the tedium of delay after delay once Brazil is reached. It is here that you realise what you are about to get into, a traditional British sense of humour finding the humourous side of everything, that overwhelming politeness that Brits of the past had and the villain of the piece. Next up is the journey into the interior, observations of wildlife, usually that has just been shot and much hardship as Fleming and his team show just how much stamina they had. Finally the most exciting part, the race home to catch a boat, whilst trying to stay ahead of the villain mentioned in the first section.
So what was the point of the adventure? To look for a missing explorer and his son, I had to google this explorer as I hadn’t heard of him before, amazingly this is a mystery that is still alive and well today, recent documentaries show that this is a story that people still aren’t ready to let go of yet, it was interesting to see all the attempts to find the missing explorer over the years. I was well over 200 pages in when I had a thought, Peter Fleming…is he related to that James Bond author? Turns out he is Ian Flemings big brother, the world really is small.
The writing is top notch, even when talking about the planning and the lying around being inactive Fleming pulls in the reader by sharing observations blended his sense of fun, he makes the most of any downtime to keep the reader entertained. I really enjoyed the race in part 3, the pace was intense, the stamina great and the delays soooooooo frustrating. Some of the language is a bit awkward, I know it is a case of those were normal opinions in those days, you can tell that Fleming cared for those he met and worked with and I’m sure if he wrote it today the language used would be far different. This was an epic journey up an epic river and made for a fantastic read. Highly recommended.
Thanks to Eland Publishing for sending me this copy, you can get yourself a copy direct from the publisher HERE:
What Da Cover Says: A Psychopath’s Guide to Paradise. Teenager Horatio has only just moved to Antigua, but already he’s making enemies. A crazed local youth is jealous of his new girlfriend, and hostile resident police suspect him of selling drugs to tourists. Throw in school, a bossy step-grandmother, plus weekends toiling in a launderette, and little wonder the idyllic island is proving to be no holiday. With his love-rival seeking vengeance, law enforcement tightening their noose, and the family growing suspicious of their British relative, the audacious adolescent has got a lot of balls to juggle. How on earth will he find time to kill again?
What I Says: Horatio’s first outing in this series was very much “like father like son” but in this second book the changes are starting to appear. The thinking on the spot, the intelligence, the not caring if he fits in and the willingness to kill are all there but Horatio’s need to kill is far greater. Horatio’s dad always had a reason to kill and maybe it is because Horatio is younger, but he is happy to kill if the opportunity arrives….and boy did he have many of those whilst in Antigua.
After the events of the first book Horatio and his mum have gone to live with family in Antigua, it is a massive upheaval that Horatio takes in his stride, working hard at a launderette, doing well at school, making enemies and causing just a touch of chaos. I am thoroughly enjoying this series and I think Horatio as now overtaken his father as my favourite killer. I love how his mind wanders towards the darkness whilst still focusing on conversations around him, nothing phases him. I also like how Portman has this ability to welcome the reader into the mind of a killer and leave you wondering why people seem to be so suspicious, everything is normal here.
Portman’s writing is superb, an author that never lets you down, but I do feel he needs to up the ante a bit, Horatio is too in control, I wanna see this lad sweat a bit…the ending potentially lines up his next challenge and I wonder if our friendly psychopath has met his match.
Highly recommend this fun series, make sure you start with the first trilogy though as this does contain spoilers for those who are new to this franchise.
Ey up, I know that I’m always moaning about not getting Nobel Prize but here’s a big shout out to the judges for the Oscars who neglected to nominate me for a single Oscar!!! How very dare you, I am more dramatic than Brian Blessed and deserve all that is coming to me….oh well rant over and on to my next rant….Please welcome Michael Keenaghan the author of one of my favourite reads of 2024 Smiler with Knife….
Q1: Hello, tell us a bit about yourself?
I’m a born and bred Londoner of Irish extraction first; a writer second. I chronicle London’s contemporary shades of light and dark. Mostly dark. Watch out, I have something of the night about me.
Q2: What is Smiler with Knife about? And can you explain what the title means?
It’s a threatening and violent image – a title that accurately summarises the stories in the collection. The book contains a nice array of urban characters, from hapless ex-cons and smackheads trying to earn their next pound note, to faded Britpop musicians mired in nostalgia, to nine-to-fivers trying to forget about the workmate they buried in a wasteland about to become a new-build housing estate. There are bent coppers and immigrants and lost teenagers seeking love, so a fair bit of variety for all tastes I’d say. If not, there’s always Mills and Boon.
Q3: Why did you go with short stories and not a full novel?
My first novel ‘London is Dead’ was released at the tail end of 2022, so I felt it was time to get some of my short fiction out there in a collection. ‘London is Dead’ is my take on the Great London Novel. It’s starts with a distinctly cockney flavour at the Essex borders and meanders its way inward through the alleys of Hackney, Tottenham and Archway to the remaining Irish community of County Kilburn (and its outlaws) to the gang territories of Harlesden and Stonebridge. Throw in some Albanian and Turkish delights and away you go. It’s a novel quite panoramic in its ambition. I wanted to write the book I’ve always wanted to read, and feel I didn’t do too badly. So hence it was time for ‘Smiler with Knife’ a book of shorts set within those streets and with a similar degree of scope – lots of different characters in one bustling city all trying to get by (and sometimes failing badly). The tales that begin and end the book are fictional but based around real events, so I’m skirting Jake Arnott/David Peace turf there, delving into the ‘faction’ thing, a little habit of mine. All in all, the short story is a form I particularly favour and should be celebrated more I think.
Note to self….get a copy of London is Dead.
Q4: How well has the book gone down? Are copies sold in the millions now?
Yes, sales have just passed one million so any day now I’m expecting a fairly substantial royalty cheque… no, I’m joking. But put it this way, for an outsider scribe like me sales have way surpassed all my humble expectations. And feedback has been positive which is always good.
Q5: Do you have a favourite story in the collection?
I quite like ‘Death of a Party’. It’s a wildcard thrown in there which is inspired by my days as a budding musician playing the scuzzy venues of Camden Town. There’s drink and drugs and a body ends up in the canal… but I won’t spoil the story for the uninitiated. I also like ‘Exile’ which is about an Irish immigrant of the 50s/60s diaspora getting to grips with the big city experience. There are lots to choose from. I made sure I only included my very best in this book.
Q6: GNOME QUESTION!!!! If the apocalypse was about to happen how would you survive the Attack of the Gnomes? I’m putting together a handbook, you got a random bit of advice to add?
I’d find a safe bunker (or garden shed rather) and happily watch as the Gnomes take over and rule. They’d be far more interesting than those currently at the helm. Fascinating events can create fascinating fiction, so bring it on!
Q7: Where did you get your inspiration from? I could get a sense from a few British films and so many characters had me thinking of Vinny Jones.
Inspiration mainly comes from everyday life, but it’s very possible some British films may have bled (so to speak) into the proceedings. ‘The Long Good Friday’ is an urban tale set back when London still had the smoggy grit etched into its crumbling walls. It’s a great film and piece of history. I also like ‘Dead Man’s Shoes’ – a film as amusing as it is horrific. Shades of comedy can exist even in life’s bleakest moments and I like to reflect that in my writing.
Ahhh! Dead Man’s Shoes, what a movie, been many a year since I’ve seen that, must be due a rewatch.
Q8: What sort of research did you carry out for the book? The language has a real authentic feel to it…are you an undercover cop….whoops!
I’m not Old Bill so you can keep puffing on whatever it is you’re smoking and rest easy. I tend not to research and write mostly about things I know about, or at least have observed or absorbed in some way. Growing up and living in London is an education of sorts… Now that’s out of the way, you’re nicked sunshine!
Q9: The main characters are mostly male in the book, was there a reason? Would you have liked to have had a female gangster/villain?
Writing within your own gender comes more naturally so maybe it’s just laziness on my part. Having said that, there is a female character in my novel and in some of my stories outside of ‘Smiler with Knife’. Now you mention it, more female characters will certainly be on the cards.
Q10: Have you considered creating an audiobook version? Who would you love to see voicing it for you?
An audio version would be good. I’d like Craig Fairbrass. He used to be in Eastenders but more recently starred in a film called ‘Muscle’ by the director Gerard Johnson. It deals with male inadequacy and intimidation, and is shockingly gritty. Not recommended for the easily shocked – which I suppose includes me as by the end I was pretty unnerved. Fairbrass is a charismatic and under-appreciated actor.
Q11: What plans you got for the future, is there gonna be a second series?
There will be another short story collection at some point, Tales from the Dark Heart of London Part 2, but up next will be another big, edgy novel about life in the Smoke. That’s the next big project. Wish me luck. But in the meantime let the Gnomes (and shoplifters) take over…
Practical task: I am doing a gnome gallery on my blog, can you create a piece of artwork based on Gnomes, can be any medium and you are welcome to name the piece.
Title: ‘Chillin’ on the South Kilburn Estate’
Massive thanks to Michael for taking part in this interview, having read Smiler with Knife I feel I have only just touched the surface with this world and am looking forward to reading more.
I asked for any links that the author would like to be added at the end of this interview, ya know the type, links to buy the books, links to buy merchor links to do a bit of stalking of the author. Today the legend has gone with a different route, go and search for a copy of this great book whilst this video plays in the background…
What Da Cover Says: The novel tells the story of two friends, Enero and El Negro, who take Tilo, the teenage son of Eusebio – their recently deceased friend – fishing to the Paraná River. While they drink and cook and talk and dance, they try to overcome the ghosts of their past and those of the present: their mood altered by wine and torpor. This intimate, peculiar moment connecting the lives of these three men also links them to the lives of the local inhabitants of this watery universe that runs by its own laws. There are losses, premature deaths… But there is also the stubborn vitality of nature: a bush covered with ancient trees, animals, birds; the river bearing life in its entrails, the people born and raised in this landscape which they protect tooth and nail against intruders. This story, which flows like water, talks about the love between friends, the love of a mother for her daughters, and the love of the islanders for their river and everything that lives in it. This masterful novel reveals once again Selva Almada’s unique voice and extraordinary sensitivity, allowing its characters to shine and express in action what the depths of their souls harbour.
What I Says: Well, this was an excellent read, a book that truly gets under your skin. The title says Not a River but that is exactly what this feels like, it is gentle, slowly meandering along making you feel relaxed and comfy, there are the odd warning signs that something is going on here and before you know it the river has spun you around and has claimed another reader. The writing is unusual, the dialogue has been stripped down to just the odd words between characters, no long speeches here, everything else has also been stripped right back too, each scene and lack of chapter borders makes this feel like one piece of prose…it is really rather refreshing, you don’t realise you need a book like this until you have finished it.
There were odd moments in the story that had me scratching my head, the warning signs I mentioned before, little things like a throwaway phrase “smooth sheets” did I just read that right? Was it an error in translation? Head is scratched and reader moves on…then boom! one short line and all those “errors” come together and it was so shocking, rest of the book was read in awe.
Charco press are forever putting out amazing translations and this book was so unique that Annie McDermott had to include a small afterword to explain her process on translating a book like this. Do not skip this just cos you have finished the story, she explains her technique and it is so very important the extra steps she takes to get the translation perfected, something A.I. can never do. Massive thanks to McDermott for the extra work she put in because without that this reader never would have had the chance to read this…let alone enjoy it as much as I did.
Thanks to Charco Press for sending me out this copy, highly recommended and you can purchase direct from publisher HERE:
What Da Cover Says: This powerful collection of stories takes you to London’s drinking dens, backstreets and shadowy housing estates where coppers, criminals and the plain hard-done-by are faced with all life can throw at them.
A teenager is disillusioned when the friend he idolizes is guilty of a sick, horrific crime – when they fall out he’s forced to take part in his escapades. A moonlighting policeman is sent to blackmail a TV soap starlet; proceedings take a twist when she turns the tables and before long bullets are flying. A gangster dreaming of a world away from his domineering boss stabs a stranger in a street confrontation, an action with consequences more hellish than he could have imagined…
What I Says: It’s always nice when you pick up a book where you know virtually nothing about it and it turns out you have something very good in your hands. What a reader needs when trying an unknown author is a strong opening to draw you in, the first story in Smile With Knife is Tottenham Forever and from the first paragraph I knew I was on to a winner, the police smashing down a door in a drug raid and our narrator is the criminal who has zero respect for the police…already I was wondering who I was going to be siding with.
This collection of short stories feels like a confessional, you get a sense of the characters being interviewed, explaining their lives and how they came to be sat in front of you recounting their violent history. Most of the characters come across as being shameful of their past acts, they are not asking for forgiveness but have a desperation for you to see their side of things, how past events inevitably led to how it all played out, a real hopelessness to them being controlled by societies expectations. The book is crammed with violent murders, drugs, gang warfare, corrupt cops and violent husbands and as soon as you get under the skin of the criminal you can see how tragic it all is, there were more moving scenes than I was expecting.
The title story was my favourite, you get to witness the cops interrogating a man and it is obvious from the start that he is a broken man (before they got to him) and it is quite shocking how the story plays out. Another story worthy of a mention is The Meat Trade, great main character going into detail about his job for the mob, not gonna tell you what that is here but from the title you can have a good guess. There is a lot of urban language from the streets of London and it was remarkably easy to get into the swing of things, being a fan of films like Lock, Stock and two Smoking Barrels it turns out this was the perfect book for me. Well written and not a single weakness in the best bit of transgressive fiction I’ve come across in a few years. Highly recommended.
Gnome Appreciation Society 