A few years ago I picked up David Huggins's THE BIG
KISS--I've not yet read it, but it looks like it might be a
decent "neo-noir" (I'm not getting into that terminology
debate here).
Below is a description from GoogleBooks, including a quote
from Will Self, a peer of Barnes and Amis (as I try to
retro-actively bring a previous post of mine on-topic
;-)
If anyone has an opinion, let me know if I should move THE
BIG KISS higher up in my towering "to read" stack.
Also, any thoughts on James Hawes? I liked A WHITE MERC WTIH
FINS
(though I felt the ending did not pay off)--perhaps I'd
describe it as Jason Starr meets TRAINSPOTTING. I did not
read his later RANCID ALUMINIUM.
Mark Nevins
THE BIG KISS
"If Chester Himes had an obsessive-compulsive disorder or
Raymond Chandler went on Prozac, they might have written
something like The Big Kiss.David Huggins's prose is a
delight."--Will Self
Steve Cork's marriage to ex-model Liz has gone from
seven-year itch to nine-year eczema, his best friend and
business partner Tony has wrecked his own marriage and now
his Porsche in a long-running battle with the bottle, and
their knock-off designer clothing company is being taken over
by Alan Denton, a man with the brand of self-confidence you
can't buy from a therapist or a drug dealer. Plus, either
Steve has begun hallucinating, or London's buildings are
bursting into psychedelic bubbles--and the brash Mr. Denton
is a rapist and a murderer.
Even with a fresh lithium prescription, Steve is convinced
that his mental instability is not entirely to blame for the
way his life is unravelling. Someone here in glamorous '90s
Swinging London is out to get him, and all of his friends are
now the most obvious suspects. He has no idea whom to trust,
including himself, and no one seems to trust him--either
because he's crazy or because they're conspiring against
him.
But what is clear is that in the Hitchcockian thriller his
life has become, someone will end up the hapless victim,
someone the evil villain, and someone the triumphant hero.
And Steve, hampered by hallucinations, psycho-active drugs,
and a long string of very bad luck, is running out of time to
choose which role he gets to play.
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