FIREFIGHT By Chris Ryan – Reviewed

A kind of grown-up boy’s own adventure. A gritty, urban, modern James Bond, without the sexy women, the hot gadgets, or Fleming’s style. In fact without the panache, without the fast cars, and the big bad villain. Without any of the accessories that make Bond such a great character. So what do we have?

Former SAS Captain Will Jackson is a drunk, having left the regiment two years ago after the brutal murder of his wife and child in a terrorist attack. But Jackson is called in by MI5 for one last mission, to seek out Faisal Ahmed, a former CIA operative who has gone rogue and intends to target London in a massive terror attack. Jackson must put together a crack team to follow the only lead they have, to Afghanistan to attempt to save Ahmed’s sister from the Taliban in the hope that she will lead them to him.

Ryan’s writing style is basic, and even a little clumpy in areas. His characters are cardboard, his plots are weak and predictable. What he does bring to the table is authenticity, and he does that by the bucket load. Despite the failures of many parts of the book, it still manages to hold up (just), because of the small details that make you think, yes, that’s right.

There are better thrillers, there are better books, better characters, better plots, but you won’t get authenticity much better than this. For purists and fans only, the bloke is a true hero, but he’s not a novelist.

DEADHEAD By Shaun Hutson – Reviewed

DEADHEAD By Shaun Hutson

Shaun Hutson is bloody marvellous. He writes brutal, nasty, horror fiction that makes you squirm. Since he started out in the mid-nineties Hutson has continued to ply his trade, producing in-your-face horror of the shock and gore variety. He’s the Jack Ketchum of the UK.

In Deadhead Hutson gives us Nick Ryan, former policeman and now Private Investigator, whose daughter, Kelly, is kidnapped by snuff-film makers who are blackmailing Kelly’s step-father. The backdrop is a series of brutal murders of homeless children.

Hutson sets the story in London, and gives us realistic details of a pre-cleanup Soho of depravity and pervery. His typical cast of characters, gangland bosses, dodgy property developers, and a dysfunctional family dragged into the hotpot of murder and sexual violence, are all present and correct.

Hutson provides his realistic setting for the horrific outbursts of violence, giving us brutal and gory details, so you can almost feel every piece of flesh flying at you after a shotgun blast to face. The sexual violence is uninhibited and really makes some scenes uncomfortable.

Huston is beyond any kind of limits most writers would set for themselves or their readers, and that’s where Hutson’s true power lies. Nothing is beyond his imagination, no matter how nasty, how wrong or how disgusting it is.

Deadhead is classic Hutson, like a raw wound you can’t help but play with!

Reading and Writing

I finished reading Stephen Fry’s The Hippopotamus last week, and thought I’d raid my bookshelves for something different and came up with Shaun Hutson’s Deadhead. You can’t get more of a contrast, and I’ve been a fan of Huston since the beginning, so I read that one this week too. (Review coming soon!) For those of you who don’t know, The Hippopotamus is a middle-class comedy set in Norfolk, and Deadhead is a brutally realistic urban horror novel

Now I’m reading Stephen King’s On Writing, another old hardback from my ancient collection that’s been gathering dust for years. King says he reads between 60-70 books a year. Like King, I’m a fairly slow reader, and I doubt I’ve ever managed 60-70! At the moment I’m on a pretty good run and I’ve read about four books in three weeks and should finish On Writing tomorrow or Monday, which puts it at four days, which I think is pretty good. Of course, King is counting audio books. I’ve never read an audio book, haven’t listened to one either. Fry would be excellent, he does the Harry Potter books, but I’ve read all of those.

A quick check on ebay and I’ve bought a collection of Clive Barker books, unabridged as King suggests, an Edgar Rice Burroughs collection and H. G .Wells, and some classics. When they arrive I’ll download them to my ipod and listen to them instead of 30 Seconds to Mars.

On Writing is good. King doesn’t like adverbs or the passive voice, so I’m trying not to use those. He also doesn’t plot. Which does explain some of his novels. I am a fan of Stephen King, when he’s on form he’s one of the best, Different Seasons is amazing. But the last book of his I read was Rose Madder, one he says he did plot. That was utter pants. On Writing is much better, and it helps to read books about writing every now and then, it’s like driving, after we pass the test we learn lots of bad habits. It’s the same with writing but without the test. I will try to put his advice to the test and hopefully will wind up with his success.

Wrote the Hutson review (needs to be edited), an article on Scream Queens which was really hard work, and a flash zombie story which was fun. Nose to the grindstone!