Book Of The Month:
9987
Nik Jones, Tonto Books, £7.99

The world of cinema and the blurring distinctions of fantasy and reality are the fuel for this excellent debut novel of obsession, voyeurism, violence and a disturbed mind spiralling out of control. The murky tale begins with mysterious traces of blood appearing around the protagonist’s Total Rental shop, and the emergence of the leading man’s love interest, the mysterious Scarlett, customer number 9987. Convinced customer number 7451 Algarry, Neville is a porno-watching psychotic killer, our film-anorak narrator turns into stalker mode protecting his princess who he believes to be next on the killer’s list. Yet his beloved pays him no attention in reality; though shares a passionate affair with him in his twisted head. Obsession breeds violence and as each page is turned, the shop owner becomes a little more dark, depraved and plain scary. The tension Jones builds as the story unravels is superb and the finale is so macabre, it is one you will remember for some time. The plot weaves and twists and turn and all knits together grimly for a deranged end. 9987 is one disturbing, brilliant debut. JP

Burial
Neil Cross, Simon and Schuster, £12.99.

‘I didn’t mean to kill her’, are six words you’d never want to find yourself saying. But for central character Nathan, caught up in a world of sex, drugs, and accidental death, they’re eternally on the tip of his tongue. Only strange acquaintance Bob knows the truth, but can he be trusted not to crack in a world of relentless media speculation, and paranormal fear? With blood on their hands, it questions just how far someone would go to cover up the tracks of their youth, and keep one another’s secrets literally, buried.

Fresh from scripting the most recent two series of BBC drama Spooks, Cross certainly hasn’t run out of edge-of-the-seat storylines, although Burial may feel to some like a one hour episode stretched into an entire, yet reasonably short, novel. If anything however, combined with the author’s frank, tight, language, it only makes the page turning swifter, in what proves to be a successful thriller of lies and deceit. With sufficient amounts of darkness, weaved into the realism of everyday Gloucestershire, it’s still light enough to provide all the answers you’ll need in a week. KS

Gun
Ray Banks, Crime Express, £4.99

This is the seventh in a series of novellas which comes under the Crime Express imprint of the publishers, Five Leaves. They are nicely produced, pocket sized books which are designed to be read in one breathless sitting and this edition from local writer, Ray Banks, is as hard boiled as they come. Sample dialogue: “Richie sat on the Metro, a copy of the free newspaper in his lap to cover up most of the blood, as well as the bag with his gun in it. He stared at his reflection in the opposite window. Saw the concrete give way to night, the train pulling out from Byker and heading out towards the coast.” As it’s so sleight, I don’t want to give away too much in the way of plot save to say that it’s populated with people with monikers such as ‘Florida Al’, Magnum guns, charvas clad in stripped jumpers and trackie bottoms, and a Gregg’s steak bake is vomited up at one point. If you like your literature to deliver the equivalent of a short, sharp shock to the solar plexus, then you’ll not go far wrong here. DP

Frankie
Judy Walker, UKA Press, £7.99

This superb novel for children (notionally aimed at 9-12 year olds) concerns a 13-year-old boy, Frankie, whose life is turned upside down when he is sent to live with his aunty and uncle who he finds a little on the odd side. Not only does the living room contain no TV, but they also eat their own home-grown vegetables, talk in “stupid Geordie accents” and spend their time listening to Taizé music (simple chanting). He makes friends at school, as well as an enemy, and also befriends a blind girl who appears to be in terrible danger...

Judy Walker is a local author and this is her first novel for children. She certainly has a handle on the sensibilities of young teenagers and also has a fantastic ear for naturalistic dialogue and this is a novel which doesn’t shirk away from issues surrounding adult infidelities, with both drink and drugs getting a mention, too. What she has also produced is an increasingly gripping tale, which is full of twists and turns which will surely enthral any young reader right until the last page. GM

Go With Me
Castle Freeman, Duckworth Overlook, £7.99

In these credit-crunched times you can buy a lot of things for £7.99. Things like steak dinners, U2’s new album (don’t, though) and Woolworths. You can also opt to pick up this new paperback edition of Castle Freeman’s ‘Go With Me’ if you want. But with the novel unravelling over a mere 160, double-spaced pages, does it really warrant the investment? Taking place in backwoods Vermont, U.S.A., the rural noir sees a young lady called Lillian enlisting the help of a couple of local oddballs to face up to a criminal menace and all-round bad egg by the name of Blackway, who has driven her boyfriend out of town and then taken it upon himself to stalk her, killing her cat in the process. As we follow Lillian’s progress in tracking her antagonist down, a rag-tag cast of drunken layabouts keep a running commentary from a dilapidated mill nearby. At times, ‘Go With Me’ aptly illustrates the limitations of the law and its practitioners and vividly captures the small-town mentalities portrayed in ‘Fargo’ and ‘No Country For Old Men’, the Coen brothers’ films. Yet its frenetic pace comes at a cost, not least in the lack of character development and an inevitably anti-climactic conclusion. So just borrow this one from the library, though you’ll probably be done reading before you get out the door. JFT

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