4 out of 5 stars
On Amazon UK HERE
On Amazon.com HERE
On Goodreads HERE
How I discovered this book: The first book I read and reviewed by this author was Abandon, after reading a review for it on Between The Lines book blog. I have since read and reviewed Run and Snowbound. I happened to notice this one as a suggestion on my Kindle app, when I'd just finished my last book, and couldn't resist letting it queue-jump the to-read list ;)
This is a long novella length story (or perhaps a short novel, I didn't count the words!), and a fair bit different from others I've read by this author. Although there are moderately horrific elements, it's essentially a darkly humorous contemporary tale, about a man called Lancelot Blue Dunquist who happens to be the exact double of famous Hollywood star James Jansen. All his life he has had a plan, and one day circumstances conspire to make him put it into action.
I love the way Blake Crouch writes, and this story is great fun. As with Run and Snowbound, though, I felt myself having to do the belief suspension thing just a little bit too often. Lance's character is fairly fluid, changing to fit the plot; he's a 38 year old who has lived with his small town parents in South Carolina all his life, happens to be incredibly handsome, and moderately self-confident and intelligent, but has only ever slept with one girl, 18 years before, and has no social life. At times he seems entertainingly naive, which is reasonable considering his lack of life experience, yet at other times displays a sharp insight that seems unlikely to have evolved, given his story-so-far.
I won't be giving out too much in the way of spoilers if I say that he pretends to be James Jansen, but where it became a bit too ludicrous even for belief-suspended-me was when people that Jansen knew well were taken in by the charade. The end is great, a terrific twist in the tale, but, again, impossible - however much you look like someone, you can't fake medical records! On the other hand, it's a smoothly written, never-a-dull-moment, entertaining romp, so maybe all these things don't matter too much; I enjoyed reading it and would recommend it. Just :)
4.5 out of 5 stars
Murder/thriller set in LA
On Amazon UK HERE
On Amazon.com HERE
On Goodreads HERE
Reviewed by me as a member of Rosie Amber's Review Team
Trust Me is a well written and cleverly plotted crime/murder thriller
set in and around Los Angeles. The main
character is Jeff Fenner, a heavy drinker and jaded coke/LSD dealer whose life
is imploding as his addictions wear him out, and one piece of bad luck follows
another. Running alongside is the story
of deeply troubled Holly, who gets involved with SOL, the 'Save Our Life'
organisation that purports to solve problems of addiction and psychological
blocks by way of finding one's 'inner child'.
At an SOL meeting she meets the mysterious Art Bradley.
Ron, a journalist, befriends Jeff; he is helping his cop mate Joe to
solve a series of suicides-that-might-be-murders. Soon, the links to all storylines become
clear—and there's a great twist at the beginning of Chapter 27, at 44%; didn't
expect that at all, even though I had my suspicions...
I loved the character of Jeff, and Ron was another favourite; Art
Bradley was scarily sinister from the off.
Aside from the highly readable story, I liked the way that this book was
amusingly scathing about New Age self-help psychobabble, and the comments about
the unreliability of the field of mental health, and how doctors and
psychiatrists dish out one medication to counteract the side effects of
another, and then another, and another.
I haven't got anything negative to say about this novel; it held my
interest throughout, ends well, and isn't predictable. For me, it just missed the spark that sends a
book into the '5*, I loved it' zone, but that's only personal taste; it's jolly
good, I'd recommend it, and I'd definitely read more by this author.
4.5 out of 5 stars
On Amazon UK HERE
On Amazon.com HERE
On Goodreads HERE
I can't believe this is only 99p! It's a bumper blockbuster of a book, a slightly tongue-in-cheek crime/gangster thriller that races from Los Angeles to Chicago, to London and back again. It reminded me in some ways of a Jackie Collins, and certainly of the weighty and multi-faceted popular fiction heavyweights of the 1980s.
Buddy Chinn is a lazy, alcoholic, not very successful writer, passionately in love with the wayward Monique. His trial starts when he meets dastardly rare manuscript collector Mortimer Saxon, who sets him a task ~ to uncover a lost series of correspondence between Buddy's father Henry (a much more successful writer) and a famous chess champion. The prize will be $100,000. Failure to complete the task will mean almost certain death.
This is the fifth Mark Barry I've read, and it follows some of the traits of his other books: the sensitive loser with a hundred negative personality traits who you somehow can't help loving, who's hopelessly addicted to a woman who, the reader suspects, is less keen. The difference with this book is that we get to see Monique's point of view too - and very surprising it is! All the characters in this page turner are sharply drawn with humour and intricate detail, as always, and the plot is unpredictable and so well thought out. One of the main triumphs, for me, is that an English writer living in England has successfully written about Americans living in the US; only now and again did I feel the dialogue/narrative was a little self-conscious, and that's only because I'm a bit picky!
It's really a book to settle in and snuggle down with, as I've enjoyed doing over the last few days. Mark Barry is a terrifically talented writer, and I'd recommend anything written by him.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE CITY OF CRIMINALS by Mark Barry is reviewed HERE, with links to reviews for THE NIGHT PORTER, CARLA, and ULTRA VIOLENCE.
