Still
finding random picks as I wait for popular bestsellers from TPL.
Shaw’s black humour is a welcome change from the usual. Philip
Fletcher is a successful, experienced actor, but somewhat broke; his
habit of quoting from classic plays to fit the moment’s mood will
endear him to theatre buffs. With misgivings, he agrees to a major
part in the film Midnight Rider, being produced by Ken
Kilmaine and directed by Wayne Schlesinger. Scriptwriter Harve
Goldman intends it to be an eighteenth-century Dick Turpin highwayman
adventure. Philip learns as filming begins that Wayne is certifiably
nuts and no one in the industry trusts Kilmaine. Regretting the
unhappy situation on the set, Philip also notes his contract payments
are not forthcoming and someone is trying to kill him.
Cocky
pop singer Sleat has the title role, being hilariously, cravenly
inept at it. Shelley Lamour plays the love interest, constantly
shadowed by her hulking cowboy husband. Who threatens everyone if
they so much as speak to her. Philip adores Mandy who plays his
sister. Philip and Harve have an ongoing battle over the sadly
deficient script. Terry the first assistant and Chopper the stuntman
provide some sanity. When murder attempts increase, Philip employs
mental acrobatics to figure out who is doing this and how to
plan an excellent revenge. Stage makeup plays a creative part in
disguises. George, a young wannabe actor, is Philip’s occasional
assistant. One notices a sly bias about the film industry, but Philip
is as entertaining or more than Sandford’s Virgil Flowers.
Words:
anabasis – a military advance
monoglot
– a person who speaks only one language
phoneme
– a unit of sound in speech (44 in English; look it up)
One-liners:
▪ He
had about as much chance of finding the Dead Sea Scrolls as a clean
shirt. (18)
▪ “Is
that walking tin of cat meat meant to be Black Bess by any chance,
legendary thoroughbred and immortal heroine of the famous midnight
ride to York?” (121)
▪ Of
course, it was only to be expected that Ken was crooked; he was a
film producer, the link was axiomatic. (193)
▪ “George,
drama schools are full of people who can’t act; you’ll feel quite
at home.” (205)
▪ Here
he was, allegedly dead, sitting in disguise with a known delinquent
in a stolen vehicle with a hot video-recorder at his feet. (215)
Multi-liners:
▪ He
could take his drink, no lily-livered pup he. No liver left to speak
of at all. (41)
▪ Philip
smiled weakly. His smile froze as her hand brushed his knee under the
table. She winked meaningfully at him. (89)
▪ “I’ll
leave the rope as loose as possible,” the props man explained,
looping half a dozen times around his body before securing his hands
in front of him with a big knot. “But it can’t be too loose, it’s
got to look convincing.” (191)
Sleat
explains for publicity:
“What really attracted me to the character of Dick Turpin is that this guy’s like from the wrong side of the tracks, you know, like he finds injustice everywhere he looks, like Robin Hood, and he has to stamp it out, but the really crucial thing is that it’s the capitalist system that’s driven him to crime, he has no alternative, which is why the ruling class finds him so dangerous, because he isn’t afraid of their repression, ‘cos he doesn’t know his place like he’s supposed to, and he really represents the people, he’s an original working class hero, and I think he’s got this amazing, like, empathy with the natural world, because he lives wild and free, you see, so I think it’s important we get away from the stereotypes and see him in terms of being an ecological role model, and that’s what I think’s really great, you know.” (78)
Philip’s
spy emails him:
There’s been a certain amount of, let us say, polite surprise at some of the names you gave me. Nobody can recall the last time Wayne Schlesinger worked. I remember him being described as a promising newcomer years ago, but then he was thrown off the set midway thru his second feature after accusing the camera crew of being extraterrestrial spies. Most people I spoke to seemed to think he was in a clinic someplace. (114)
Insatiable
Shelley:
“You keep your grubby little paws to yourself in future, mister,” snarled the jealous cowboy, “or you’ll be in trouble, you hear?”
“Take your bloody hands off me!” Philip snapped, anger overcoming fear. “This is intolerable, who the hell do you think you are?”
Chopper thrust his way between them. “Back off mate,” he said coolly, giving Marve a dirty stare.
The cowboy was momentarily taken aback. “You keep out of this!” he growled at length. “This ain’t none of your business.”
“Oh yeah?” The burly stuntman casually folded his arms. He gave Philip a nod. “He happens to be a mate of mine. Mess with him and you mess with me, geddit?”Marve’s eyes narrowed threateningly. He waved a threatening fist at Chopper. “You’re asking for a smack in the face, mister.”
“What, from you?” Chopper scoffed. “You overgrown tub of lard.” (123)
Boating
on a pond:
“What if there’s a storm?” demanded the anxious pop star.
“A storm?” Terry repeated incredulously. “This is a small lake in Buckinghamshire. Not the North Sea.”
Sleat was not convinced.
“Nothing’s going to go wrong,” Terry continued, adopting a conciliatory tone. He pointed at the specially hired frogman, who was sitting on the bank putting on his flippers. “In any case, Pete’ll be in the water with you the whole time. Even if the unthinkable happened, Pete’ll see you all right.”
“Unless the sharks get him first,” observed Philip gently. (190)
Karen Swan. The Greek Escape.
UK: Pan Books/Macmillan, 2018.
Imagine
a job – a career – as “lifestyle manager” for the super-rich,
arranging their calendars, providing their needs and demands,
becoming their trusted, confidential coaches. Professional young
thing Poppy does that for the Invicta Company in New York, her friend
Chloe there as corporate partnerships director—until Poppy is hit
by a car and hospitalized. Chloe inherits her personal stable of
eccentric clients, frantically bringing herself up to speed on their
files. She’d left the London office to get away from Invicta
partner Tom, her longtime boyfriend, who couldn’t sever ties with
another woman.
A
new client shows up. Joe Lincoln is an enigma, unpretentious and
single-minded: find him the perfect, isolated villa on an obscure
Greek island. Tom shows up in New York, trying to win Chloe back,
then betraying her again. Yes (sigh), it’s a romance novel of epic
proportions, but with a decent ongoing mystery in it. Chloe’s off
to Hydra (not what I’d call an obscure island) with Joe and
of course the sparks fly. But Joe is not who he seems. Alexander, a
different client, urgently prevails on Chloe for logistics to search
for his wife, gone missing off his yacht. And so it goes, as emotions
overflow. Seeking forgiveness, Tom cries a lot; how many times does
he say “You have to believe me”? (see below “making her
his”?!). I’m running out of random picks; TPL, please bump me up
on my waiting lists.
One-liners:
▪ “It’s
my job to synergize our client database with brands that will appeal
to them, be they lifestyle companies, travel deals, latest
technologies, or social happenings.” (53)
▪ Small
talk was all well and good, but it was hard to keep up for more than
a few hours at the best of times, much less twenty-four hours after
the love of her life had smashed her heart into smithereens. (208)
▪ “We
will not be needing the helicopters.” (319)
▪ She
felt his hands skim her waist, beginning things between them again,
making her his, but she placed her own hands over them, stopping him.
(336-7)
Multi-liners:
▪ “Do
not come here. I mean it. Goodbye, Tom.” (82)
▪ He
held her hand for a moment longer than she anticipated, still
assessing her, the fractional overstep just enough to force her back
a pace mentally, and set her off-balance. It was an assertion of
power. (88)
▪ “I’m
asking you to accompany me to Greece, Chloe. Not marry me.” (189)
▪ Oh
God. She bent her knees and dropped her head onto them. What had she
done? (261)
Intense
learning curve:
She had learnt about her newly adopted clients’ careers and family lives, the exact location of their international homes and the favourite suites and hotels they preferred to stay in when travelling, their dietary requirements, allergies and cosmetic surgery histories, musical and cultural tastes, preferred designers, names of their pets, the cars they drove, the schools their children went to, the dates of their birthdays, their families and loved ones. She had trawled their social media accounts, making notes of anything extra she thought to be pertinent in shot, and even though she had yet to meet any of them face to face, she felt confident she now knew them better than their mothers, spouses, best friends or bosses. She had the three-sixty view on them, the profile that only built up when their multiple different public faces were superimposed onto one body in a way that could never happen in life. (36)
Telling
Joe:
“It’s endlessly fascinating to me to see what satisfies people like you who really do genuinely have it all. Appetite doesn’t necessarily dwindle just because hunger is met; it’s part of the human condition to always want more than we can have; whatever our level, there’s always something else to aspire to and I’m interested in what makes people happy when all barriers are removed. So in your case, finding a fantastic rural retreat somewhere like this.” (202)
Hangover:
Not quite sure why she was awake herself, Chloe got up tentatively and made her way to the bathroom. Her brain seemed to knock against the inside of her head as she walked and she spent a good five minutes staring at her reflection in the mirror – mussed up bed hair (in the bad way), wearing a two-day-old bra and knickers, bags under her eyes that could kill a dog.
She looked away with a weary sigh; as in life, so on her face – the chaos was there for all to see. Tom. Joe. Poppy. (302)
Carl Hiassen. Razor Girl.
2016. USA: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2017.
Welcome
to Key West’s underbelly trash, as encountered by ex-policeman, now
public health inspector, Andrew Yancy. Andrew leads a busy life
inspecting restaurants, fighting a proposed McMansion next door to
his home, and seeking retribution from Benny the Blister who caused
an innocent man’s death. Benny is insinuating himself into the cast
of Buck Nance’s television reality show Bayou Brethren, by
way of kidnapping Buck and his agent Lane Coolman. The hugely popular
show features Buck and brothers as redneck chicken farmers. Numerous
scumbags inhabit this barely functional part of the world, along with
their girlfriends / boyfriends / significant others—examples like
Martin, whose career is built on renourishment of sand beaches; Brock
the lawyer, addicted to Pitrolux, a dangerous testosterone deodorant;
and Noogie, the intractable Mafia representative.
It’s
not long before Andrew, still pining for Rosa who abandoned him,
crosses paths with the delectable Merry Mansfield who is well-paid
for rear-ending targeted cars because she’s exceptionally
successful at it. The plot is thick with twists and turns through
Hiassen’s signature humour: Lost diamond ring! Importing sand from
Cuba! Phony archaeologists! Shifty chefs! Hollywood agents! Electric
cars! Therapy dogs! Giant rats! Pygmy phalluses! The sheriff’s men
and Yancy search for the missing people. The vernacular was never
more colourful with people excoriating each other as bumblefuck and
fuckwit or dickweed and shitweasel (and many a variation among).
Well, I find it all authentically hilarious and exuberant. Good to
know it could be a guide to Key West.
One-liners:
▪ “It
takes a special kind of moron to electrocute yourself with a Tesla.”
(106)
▪ “People
do come unglued,” Burton said. (120)
▪ “Andrew,
we’re not having this conversation.” (121)
▪ “He’s
lucky I didn’t chop off his pecker and feed it to the pelicans.”
(121)
▪ Exterminators
from as far as Detroit had come and gone, each more vexed than the
last. (142)
▪ “Están
grandes pendejos,” the driver repeated cordially. (257)
Multi-liners:
▪ Now
Merry worked totally freelance off her reputation. The bikini-shave
aspect of the scam was her signature, pure genius because the targets
were always men. (19)
▪ “Last
night I went one-on-one with a rat the size of a Corvette. This isn’t
the career I envisioned for myself.” (154)
▪ “Every
tourist town on the Eastern seaboard will pay serious bank for this
sand. It’s like cocaine for your toes!” (241)
▪ It
occurred to Yancy that, in the time they’d known each other, he
hadn’t once seen her look at her cell phone. She never texted,
tweeted, Facebooked, Instagrammed, or posted a single picture when
they were together. He found this behavior alluring. (259)
▪ “I
bet I’m your first redhead. Is that right, Andrew?” (352)
Good
friend Burton:
“Rog, I think Rosa’s leaving me.”
Burton sat back and slapped his hands on the tabletop. “What the fuck did you do now?”
“I’ve got no idea, but she quit her job and she’s off to Europe for a couple of weeks. We’ve all seen that movie. Weeks turn into months, and months turn into forever.”
“For Christ’s sake, Andrew, you always assume the worst.”
“That’s my motto. Put it on my tombstone: ‘Assume the worst.’”
“What tombstone? You said you’re getting cremated. You said you want your ashes scattered at high tide in Pearl Basin. See? I remember all this shit. The rum talking.” (77)
Work
day:
Tommy Lombardo called asking Yancy to rush to a new seafood joint in Marathon called the Reef Raff.
“Maybe tomorrow,” said Yancy. “Today I’ve got a McDonald’s, a Checkers and Stoney’s, of course which’ll take all afternoon.” The owner of Stoney’s Crab Palace, a man named Brennan, was a serial offender of the health codes. Roaches were so plentiful that Yancy used an improvised suction device to expedite the roundups.
Lombardo told him to forget Stoney’s and proceed at full speed to the Reef Raff. “Somethin’s moving in their mango salsa,” he reported gravely.
“Yum.”
When Yancy first went on roach patrol he’d dropped thirty pounds in a haze of constant revulsion. These days almost nothing bothered him. (96-7)
Viewing
in captivity:
Watching Bayou Brethren in the company of Buck Nance and Blister had been a setback, morale-wise. Yancy might have found humour in the bourbon-soaked TV version of rural Southern life if Buck was just another harmless stooge, but he wasn’t. He was a septic inspiration to impressionable mouth-breathers such as Benny the Blister, who had accosted an innocent Muslim man only because he imagined that’s what his hero Captain Cock would have done. (319)
Near
traffic accident:
“Now I’m totally in tune with the way you think.”
“Then what am I thinking right this second?”
“You’re thinking how smokin’ hot I look,” she said.
“You’re thinking you’re really super-happy to see me, even though you won’t dare admit it.”
“I’ll admit I’m glad to see you, if you’ll admit that running me off the road is an extremely fucked-up way of saying hello.” (335)
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