- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; First Edition edition (Aug 1 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0312328257
- ISBN-13: 978-0312328252
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 14.2 x 2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 181 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,300,597 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Rawhead, the lethal antihero of this gruesome underworld thriller, is both a "fast, businesslike and thoroughly unpleasant" practitioner of "violence as God intended" and a demonic "elemental power" like a volcano, a lightning bolt and a "biblical plague." Part smoothly efficient hit man, part Frankenstein monster, part Heathcliff, Rawhead adds a note of maniacal mayhem ("[he] saw a man capering around in circles, blood fountaining from his cranium") while exerting a grim magnetism over "the Spirit of Darkness," an equally lethal lady assassin (and "ancient, bloodthirsty goddess" in her own right) hired by mob bosses to kill him. Bowker (The Death You Deserve) transplants the basics of L.A. noir—complete with satirical subplot about a desperate writer corrupted by hack television producers—to the usual squalor and debauchery of gangland Manchester, England, and adds a shot of rancid Victorian romance, culminating in a romantic tryst in a gloomy vicarage, "consummated... on a bed of human carrion." He highlights his punchy, deadpan prose with streaks of purple ("[b]efore you knew it, you were bleeding. Then you were pleading. Then you were dead") while keeping up a parade of piquant scumbags and well-paced, cringe-inducing violence. If the varying tones of gritty crime procedural, black comedy and gothic grand guignol sometimes clash, readers (those with strong stomachs, anyway) will be having too much fun to care.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Description
Manchester, England. Death stalks these streets in the form of a hired killer named Rawhead--a shadowy yet powerful figure desperate to control a ruthless mob family called The Priesthood. He will stop at nothing to invade their inner sanctum.
Author Billy Dye has finally found success after years of struggle. But now Rawhead, his childhood friend turned maniacal assassin, has reentered his life and involved him in a plot to take over The Priesthood and wrest control of the Manchester underworld. Nobody is safe in this action-packed, violent, and often hilarious crime novel.
David Bowker is the new voice of British crime and the most original author to burst on the scene in years.
Author Billy Dye has finally found success after years of struggle. But now Rawhead, his childhood friend turned maniacal assassin, has reentered his life and involved him in a plot to take over The Priesthood and wrest control of the Manchester underworld. Nobody is safe in this action-packed, violent, and often hilarious crime novel.
David Bowker is the new voice of British crime and the most original author to burst on the scene in years.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
On the eve of his wedding, Billy Dye received a warning from a dead man. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
On the eve of his wedding, Billy Dye received a warning from a dead man. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Should be a Guy Richie movie, Jan 18 2005
By T. Cox "rollerpimp" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: I Love My Smith and Wesson: A Novel (Paperback)
The previous reviewer does not know what he is talking about. This book is a great and fast read that reminds me the pacing, and dialoge of a Guy Richie movie like "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels." The story revolves around the anti-hero hitman Rawhead and his escapades into revenge, loyalty, hollywood and being a doorknob.
This book is violent and twisted at parts but it is a book. It is made up. These are not real people or real situations. It's all illusion.
Entertainment Weekly is right again.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
unique satirical crime thriller, July 28 2004
By Harriet Klausner - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: I Love My Smith and Wesson: A Novel (Paperback)
The night before horror author Billy Dye's wedding to Nikki, the mother of his child, hired killer Rawhide comes back into his life. Billy thinks Rawhide is going to kill him but even though Rawhide knows his childhood friend tried to murder him, he has other plans for Billy just as he has for The Priesthood, a mob that controls all the illegal activities that goes on in Manchester. He once killed the head of the organization,
Malcolm Priest and his lieutenants, an action that weakened the gang considerably.
The new leader Chef has made the organization stronger than ever. Little Malc, Priest's son, believes that Rawhide killed his father Malcolm Priest and has offered a reward for his capture or his death. Little Malc hires Rawhide, who he has never seen, as a bouncer for his club and the killer arranges it so that he saves Little Malc from an assassination attempt. This wins him Little Malc's trust and puts him in a position to pit him against Chef. Meanwhile, Rawhides plans for Billy don't go as planned because the author accidentally kills his wife and a sympathetic nerve in the killer's heart is touched. While helping Billy he meets his female counterpart and the two killers form a partnership based on love and murder.
David Bowker has written a unique crime thriller that will strike a chord with the audience. I Love My Smith & Wesson is a satire on mobs and crime lords and is not to be taken seriously. The situations that Rawhide manipulates verge on the slapstick but Mr. Bowker stops short of having them cross that line. He has a fresh unique voice that readers will appreciate for his dry wit and cutting edge humor.
Harriet Klausner
7 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Awful, Nov 16 2004
By R. Radick - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: I Love My Smith and Wesson: A Novel (Paperback)
What is Entertainment Weekly thinking? This is a "Must Read"? No, to the contrary. Do not read this book. As it goes along, it steadily worsens, to the point of being a parody of itself. The character development is non-existent, the plot is lame, and the writing, which actually starts out in the first chapter with a small amount of promise, degenerates into drivel. For example, near the end of the book, the following: "They took tea together, the old woman and her guests, the two most formidable executioners in the world." And then, to end the book, this quote, about the main character of the novel and his newly found assassin lover (with whom he has had ever-so-touching sex on a pile of dead bodies): "All Rawhead knew was that he had found his woman. Now they would love and kill together. The loving had spanned many lifetimes. But the killing had barely begun." Well, how nice -- thankfully, the bad writing ends there, along with the book.
Life is too short. Don't waste your time on this.
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