Review: Short, sharp thriller with a sting in the tail
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 22, 2014
Ever had one of those days? One of those Mondays where you would much rather still be immersed in your weekend, wanting to be anywhere but back at work, chained to your nine to five?Insurance company call centre operative Vincent is having one of those days, only his Monday is just about to go from your average lamenting the weekend is over Monday to something far more sinister.When he takes a call from one decidedly unhinged Mister Pierce, then things really start to unravel, as the malevolent caller sets about drawing Vincent into a deadly nightmare, where results could be cataclysmic if Vincent can’t use his phone skills to deal with this heinous start to his week.And thus begins this short, sharp and slick thriller novella from Stuart Keane, ‘The Customer Is Always…’, seizing the reader around the throat and gradually, but inexorably, applying the stranglehold until the gripping culmination of the piece.Keane might only be a newcomer to the writing scene in terms of published output, but already he exhibits that he has the writing chops and skillset to turn out some exemplary material and ‘The Customer Is Always…’ sets up a great platform for him to springboard from.From the word go, the situation between the ordinary phone representative Vincent, who any one of us readers can in some way empathise with, and the nefarious Mister Pierce, who we can probably all relate to in ways as well, is played out with a simmering escalating tension which hums like an electrical current.The brief, but engrossing tale is excellently written, layered with fine detail and well-crafted with splashes of violence splattering against stunning poignancy, cleverly woven through the developing suspense that drives the whole thing.Without wanting to give away too much of what eventuates out of Vincent’s luckless early morning phone conversation, I will just say this; imagine if somebody like Richard Laymon had a strong hand in writing a combination of cult classic flick Office Space combined with things such as Phone Booth and The Call, and you might be somewhere close to the mark.Top notch debut from a very promising upcoming writer who we will all be hearing more about. Stay tuned.