Friday, March 03, 2006

All good things come to an end

including the Mangel Trilogy, a work of complete demented comic noir genius by Charlie Williams; I've just read the final volume, it is incredibly funny and violent and full unexpected twists and just genuinely delightful. Here's the link for King of the Road at Amazon UK (I think it's not yet released in the US); or if you haven't read the previous ones and you're a US-er you can get Deadfolk and Fags and Lager from US Amazon. Or (which is what I recommend) wherever you live you can order all three directly from Serpents Tail, who have a sweet free international shipping deal.

Here's why I liked Deadfolk, anyway ("even a complete sociopath becomes perversely endearing if you get the voice right") and here are my thoughts on Fags and Lager. This one is just lovely too, it's funny and endearing and there are a lot of dismemberings (it's possibly even more violent than the first two). But the thing that makes all the books work is this amazing first-person voice. You simply can't believe Royston Blake's not a real person, Harold Bloom says this about some of Shakespeare's characters (Hamlet, Falstaff, Rosalind) and I say it about Royston ("Another boot for us, this time up the arse. Hurts a bit but not so bad as the one in me plums just now. Mind you, I've known worse in that area. Sal used to kick us harder. Must be them little feet birds have. More accuracy").

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