Review: Bristol based massive attacks
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 24, 2014
I've read a couple of novellas from Martin Stanley's increasingly impressive back catalogue before this one, and they've been entertaining blasts of violence and witty dialogue, bereft of morality and generally ending with a winner-takes-all finale that leave the taste of blood in your mouth. So when I jumped all the way to the beginning and picked up this huge and ambitious debut novel, I was hardly surprised when he gave me more of the same. What surprised me, however, was just how grander the scale would be.It's the tale of several men, each with their eyes on a final score which will see them leave the life they're living for good. There's Liam, a drug dealer whose own men have got designs on taking him to the cleaners. He's got a huge deal coming up, which involved Colombians, cocaine, and 750k of Liam's hard fought money. The thing is, Spike knows all about the money, and he's got his own plans to take it. Then add to the mix overweight gambling addict Mike Kandinsky who, in an act of fate, overhears Spikes plans, and comes to the conclusion that he and his equally deadbeat friends can liberate the cash for themselves. And finally there's corrupt cop Dave McManus, who feels like getting involved so he can disappear with the wife and kids for good. The story bounces from double cross to double cross before culminating in a bloody and violent conclusion where any of them will be lucky to get out alive.So yeah, I said it was ambitious. It is. Martin Stanley carefully and professionally constructs a superb piece of crime fiction filled to the brim with potty-mouthed scumbags, bone crunching violence, and filthy sex. he weaves the plot strands tighter than a Bristolian yardie's dreadlocks, and not one strand is left dangling. Seriously, at any given moment there are two or three parts of the story working overtime but Martin Stanley controls them with the finesse of a snake charmer with twenty years experience under his belt. The dialogue is clever too. It's got the Guy Ritchie vibe to it, in that it's far from realistic, but it's very funny with a huge amount of words in its vocabulary, and the author has an astonishingly large bag of one-liners at his disposal. As a fan of character-focused fiction I would have maybe liked a little bit more time spent with the characters, maybe getting to know them a bit more than how violently they deal with what life throws at them, but when the story is this huge and this entertaining I can forgive it.This is my favourite of Martin Stanley's books so far, and if the sequel's this good, then I'm gonna be a very happy man indeed. Very highly recommended reading.