RARA-AVIS: Re: RARA-AVIS Digest V3 #252 "List recommendations you've liked"

From: Peter Davis ( yourflesh@worldnet.att.net)
Date: 18 May 2000


Being new to this list I can't lay claim to having been turned on to anything new here yet, but I thought I'd pass along a recommendation all my own: Jake Arnott's
"The Long Firm" (Soho, 1999). Simply put: an original. The book is broken down into five long chapters. Each chapter from a different character's voice depicting its specific association with criminal mastermind, Harry Starks. Starks is a hoodlum of the organized variety. Runs a rival "firm" to that of the infamous (and very real) Kray Twins, 1960's London. Starks' capacity for benevolence and kindheartedness--a mostly thin veil of camouflage concealing his hidden agendas--is the expansive equal to Starks' sadistic tendencies, both physical and psychological. That Starks is gay may put some folks off, but his orientation, though predominantly secondary to the crimes at hand, strengthens the weight of character, his quarries, and his quandries. A deft portrayal of amoral character. A pretty brilliant book. True hardboiled fans should not pass on this one.

Peter Davis Your Flesh Magazine

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