From Booklist
Haslam's perpetually stoned protagonist, Martin Brock, a throwback to the seventies, would give the venerable Hunter Thompson a run for his money in the staggering amount of pharmaceuticals he ingests on a daily basis. Englishman Martin is on a serious downward spiral, living in a ruined castle on the Spanish coast; dealing overpriced, stepped-on drugs to the tourists; being henpecked by a coke-addicted harridan; and consorting with an overly paranoid motley crew of expatriates. Droll and self-deprecating, Martin is all too aware of the rut he is in. Then an old friend appears and promptly dies, leaving Martin five kilos of cocaine so pure he gets brain freeze just looking at it. But the drugs bring in their wake a set of ruthless gangsters. Showing more ambition than he has in years, Martin refuses to tell them where he has stashed the coke, leading them on a merry chase through the foothills, wheezing all the way. A memorable debut novel full of high energy and dark wit.
Joanne WilkinsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Product Description
Martin Brock is living a wasted life. He wants to be happy. He wants to have a girlfriend who can stand to be near him. He wants his friends to respect him. Burned out and self-deluded, he takes each day as it comes, dealing low-quality cocaine to tourists, his head in a perpetual cloud of pot smoke. Martin knows he's in a rut, but he lacks the will to dig himself out. Incapable of changing his life, he hopes instead that one day something momentous will simply fall into his lap.
And, one day, it does. An old friend rides into town, unannounced and uninvited, needing a place to lie low for a couple of days. He says he's been in a motorcycle accident, and hides a badly infected leg beneath his expensive leathers. Martin almost cares, but he's far more interested in what's concealed beneath the seat of the bike: five kilos of high-grade cocaine. Suddenly Martin has the means to escape his miserable existence: all he needs is a little time and a lot of luck. But Martin Brock is not a lucky man. He's spent years dreaming of a life of ease, a life of plenty, and a life of unlimited narcotics. By the end of the week, he'll settle for any life at all.
